have to report it, of course. I've been all evening with the
steamship officials. They're having cancellations." He smiled
faintly at me. "We can't get along without you Americans, Bob."

I have not mentioned that I am an American. I was on vacation from
my job as radio technician in New York. Don Livingston, who is
English and three years my senior, was in a similar line of work--at
this time he was technician in the small Bermuda broadcasting
station located in the nearby town of St. Georges.

* * * * *

We talked until nearly midnight. Then the telephone rang. It was the
Police Chief in Hamilton. Ghosts had been seen in that vicinity this
evening. There were a dozen complaints of ghostly marauders prowling
around homes. This time from both white and colored families.

And there was one outstanding fact, frightening, indeed, though at
first we could not believe that it meant very much, or that it had
any connection with this weird affair. In the residential suburb of
Paget, across the harbor from Hamilton, a young white girl, named
Miss Arton, had vanished. Mr. Dorrance turned from the telephone
after listening to the details and faced us with white face and
trembling hands, his expression more perturbed and solemn than ever
before.

"It means nothing, of course. It cannot mean anything."

"What, father?" Jane demanded. "Something about Eunice?"

"Yes. You know her, Bob--you played tennis down there with her last
week. Eunice Arton."

I remembered her. A Bermuda girl; a beauty, second to none in the
islands, save perhaps Jane herself. Jane and Don had known her for
years.

"She's missing," Mr. Dorrance added. He flashed us a queer look and
we stared at him blankly. "It means nothing, of course," he added.
"She's been gone only an hour."

But we all knew that it did mean something. For myself I recall a
chill of inward horror; a revulsion as though around me were
pressing unknown things; unseeable, imponderable things menacing us
all.

"Eunice missing! But father, how missing?"

He put his arm around Jane. "Don't look so frightened, my dear
child."

He held her against him. If only all of us could have anticipated
the events of the next few days. If only we could have held Jane,
guarded her, as her father was affectionately holding her now!

* * * * *

Don exclaimed, "But the Chief of Police gave you details?"

"There weren't many to gi