eanor was already there--alone,
crushed, and with lips absolutely sealed. She had divested herself of
everything that linked her to Farquharson; she refused to adopt her
married name.

"I shall bless every saint in heaven when we have quite done with this
dreadful business of Eleanor's," Mrs. Stanleigh confided to me from her
deck-chair. "This trip that she insists on making herself seems quite
uncalled for. But you needn't think, Captain Barnaby, that I'm going to
set foot on that dreadful island--not even for the satisfaction of
seeing Mr. Farquharson's grave--and I'm shameless enough to say that it
_would_ be a satisfaction. If you could imagine the tenth part of what I
have had to put up with, all these months we've been traveling about
trying to locate the wretch! No, indeed--I shall stay right here on this
boat and intrust Eleanor to your care while ashore. And I should not
think it ought to take long, now should it?"

I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could. If by any chance the
girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it would be
verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, and in that
event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting aunt the shock
of that discovery.

We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in placid
water under the lee of the shore while the _Sylph_ swung to and the
sails fluttered and fell. A vast hush lay over the world. From the shore
the dark green of the forest confronted us with no sound or sign of
life. Above, and at this close distance blotting out half the sky over
our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha with scarred and
blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous moods. The feathery
white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, fantastic shapes, no
longer capped the crater; its place had been usurped by thick, dark
fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In the fading light I marked the
red, malignant glow of a fissure newly broken out in the side of the
ragged cone, from which came a thin, white trickle of lava.

There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been
visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I
fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of his
beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was bringing us
back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill would have greeted
us from the shore. Instead, there