aled every object to the edge of the jungle
as clearly as though it were broad day. It was a peaceful scene--so
peaceful that it was hard to imagine that daybreak might change it to a
place of carnage.

Suddenly he took his pipe from his lips and peered more closely at a
spot near the edge of the jungle. Something had moved there.

It could not be one of the sentinels. Attack was not expected from the
west. Nor was it one of the small, night-roaming animals of the
forest. Drew was sure there were no beasts of prey on this island. It
was too far from the mainland and the larger islands.

The something which he had seen moved farther out from the line of
verdure. It was a man.

Although the distance was fully a cable's length, Drew's eyes were
keen. The moonlight for a full minute shone on the face of the figure
before it moved again.

The sight of the pallid countenance, with the black hair above it,
smote Drew with an emotion akin to terror. He could not understand the
apparition--he could scarcely believe his eyes; yet that face was
Lester Parmalee's!

In a moment more the man had disappeared. The figure seemed to have
melted into the black background of the jungle.

Without a grain of superstition in his being, Allen Drew felt that he
was in the presence of the supernatural. He had not imagined the
figure. It was no figment of a waking dream.

This was what Ruth had seen. This was what had so startled her on the
occasion of the treasure seekers' first visit to the whale's hump. She
thought she had imagined the appearance of Lester Parmalee. Drew knew
he had seen it!

He was tempted to arouse Captain Hamilton. Yet he shrank from that.
He could not utter the missing man's name to Ruth's father, knowing, as
he did, that the captain was doubtful of his, Drew's, innocence in
connection with Parmalee's disappearance.

He whispered to the man on guard that he was going outside, and quickly
surmounted the barrier. He had his automatic revolver; and, anyway, he
did not think any of the mutineers were in the neighborhood.

Having marked well the spot where the ghostly figure had presented
itself to his startled vision, Drew hobbled directly to it, forgetting
in his excitement the painful foot. He did not halt to search for
foot-prints, but looked instead for an opening in the jungle, into
which the figure could have disappeared.

It was there--one of those strange lava paths through the thick
v