igeons, chatter of monkeys, hiccough of tree lizards,
were as nothing in the immense, starlit silence of the night, heavily
sweet with cassia and mace. Forward, the Malays murmured now and then,
in sentences of monotonous cadence.

"No, you can't blame them," said the captain abruptly, with decision.
"Considering the unholy strangeness of the world we live in----" He
puffed twice, the palm of his hand glowing. "Things you can't explain,"
he continued vaguely. "Now this--I thought of it today, speaking of
_hantu_. Perhaps you can explain it, being a youngster without theories.
The point is, of what follows, how much, if any, was a dream? Where were
the partition lines between sleep and waking,--between what we call
Certainty, and--the other thing? Or else, by a freak of nature, might a
man live so long--Nonsense!--Never mind; here are the facts."

* * * * *

Eleven years ago, I had the _Fulmar_ a ten months' cruise out of
Singapore, and was finally coming down along Celebes, intending to go
over to Batavia. We anchored on just such a day as this has been, off a
little old river-mouth, so badly silted that she had to lie well out. A
chief in a _campong_ half a day inland had promised to send some
specimens down that evening,--armor, harps, stone Priapuses, and birds
of paradise. The men were to come overland, and would have no boats. So
I went ashore with three or four Malays, and the Old Boy's time we had
poking in and out over the silt to find fairway, even for the gig. At
last we could make round toward a little clearing in the bamboos, with a
big canary tree in the middle. All was going well, when suddenly the
mate grunted, pointing dead ahead. That man Sidin has the most
magnificent eyes: we were steering straight into a dazzling glare. I
couldn't see anything, neither could the crew, for some time.

"_Tuggur_!" cried the mate. He was getting nervous. Then all of a
sudden--"_Brenti_!"

The crew stopped like a shot. Then they saw, too, and began to back
water and turn, all pulling different ways and yelling: "_Prau hantu!...
sampar_! _...Sakit lepra! Kolera!... hantu!_"

As we swung, I saw what it was,--a little carved prau like a child's toy
boat, perhaps four feet long, with red fiber sails and red and gilt
flags from stem to stern. It was rocking there in our swell, innocently,
but the crew were pulling for the schooner like crazy men.

I was griffin enough at the time, but I k