e handled herself."

"Oh, it will be all right," said Carter confidently. "The wind's
moderating now."

"But there's no telling how far out of the course this may have blown
him."

Barnett came down, dripping.

"Anything new?" asked Dr. Trendon.

The navigating officer shook his head.

"Nothing. But the captain's in a state of mind," he said.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The schooner. Seems possessed with the notion that there's something
wrong with her."

"Aren't you feeling a little that way yourself?" said Forsythe. "I am.
I'll take a look around before I turn in."

He left behind him a silent crowd. His return was prompt and swift.

"Come on deck," he said.

Every man leaped as to an order. There was that in Forsythe's voice which
stung. The weather had cleared somewhat, though scudding wrack still blew
across them to the westward. The ship rolled heavily. Of the sea naught
was visible except the arching waves, but in the sky they beheld again,
with a sickening sense of disaster, that pale and lovely glow which had
so bewildered them two nights before.

"The aurora!" cried McGuire, the paymaster.

"Oh, certainly," replied Ives, with sarcasm. "Dead in the west. Common
spot for the aurora. Particularly on the edge of the South Seas, where
they are thick!"

"Then what is it?"

Nobody had an answer. Carter hastened forward and returned to report.

"It's electrical anyway," said Carter. "The compass is queer again."

"Edwards ought to be close to the solution of it," ventured Ives. "This
gale should have blown him just about to the centre of interest."

"If only he isn't involved in it," said Carter anxiously.

"What could there be to involve him?" asked McGuire.

"I don't know," said Carter slowly. "Somehow I feel as if the desertion
of the schooner was in some formidable manner connected with that light."

For perhaps fifteen minutes the glow continued. It seemed to be nearer at
hand than on the former sighting; but it took no comprehensible form.
Then it died away and all was blackness again. But the officers of the
_Wolverine_ had long been in troubled slumber before the sensitive
compass regained its exact balance, and with the shifting wind to mislead
her, the cruiser had wandered, by morning, no man might know how far from
her course.

All day long of June 6th the _Wolverine_, baffled by patches of mist
and moving rain-squalls, patrolled the empty seas without sighting the
lost schoone