d lock it up."

She turned and smiled at me, but it was a queer smile, and I must
admit my own feelings were queer.

"Don't you think you're talking nonsense, Bob?"

"Yes, I do," I admitted. "I guess maybe the whole thing is nonsense.
But it's got the police quite worried. You knew that, didn't you?
All this wild talk--there must be some basis for it."

Don was saying, "Take the lower path, Willie. Take the same route
you were taking when you saw it."

* * * * *

We climbed down a steep declivity, shadowed by cedar trees, and
reached the edge of a tiny, almost landlocked, lagoon. It was no
more than a few hundred feet in diameter. The jagged, porous
gray-black rocks rose like an upstanding crater rim to mark its
ten-foot entrance to the sea. A little white house stood here with
its back against the fifty-foot cliff. It was dark, its colored
occupants probably already asleep. Two rowboats floated in the
lagoon, moored near the shore. And on the narrow strip of stony
beach, nets were spread to dry.

"This way, Mister Don. I was comin' along here, toward the Fort."
Willie was again shaking with excitement. "Just past that bend."

"You keep behind me." Don led us now, with his gun half raised.
"Don't talk when we get further along, and walk as quietly as you
can."

The narrow path followed the bottom of the cliff. We presently had
the open sea before us, with a line of reefs a few hundred yards out
against which the lazy ground swell was breaking in a line of white.
The moonlit water lapped gently at our feet. The cliff rose to our
right, a mass of gray-black rock, pitted and broken, fantastically
indented, unreal in the moonlight.

"I seen it--just about there," Willie whispered.

Before us, a little rock headland jutted out into the water. Don
halted us, and we stood silent, gazing. I think that there is hardly
any place more fantastic than a Bermuda shorefront in the moonlight.
In these little eroded recesses, caves and grottoes one might expect
to see crooked-legged gnomes, scampering to peer at the human
intruder. Gnarled cedars, hanging precariously, might hide pixies
and elves. A child's dream of fairyland, this reality of a Bermuda
shorefront.

"There it is!"

* * * * *

Willie's sibilant whisper dispelled my roaming fancy. We all turned
to stare behind us in the direction of Willie's unsteady finger. And
we all saw it--the white shape