Part 50 (1/2)

The captain fairly shouted.

”That puts the cap sheaf on!” he exulted. ”Now Ditty and his gang are done for. They can't come too soon.”

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE GHOST

The camp quieted down after a time. In one corner, Ruth had a shelter of rugs which had been brought up from the boat, and she retired to this after helping her father dress and rebandage Drew's foot.

The captain, as so many skippers are, was a good amateur surgeon; and as far as he could discern there were no bones broken. But the foot was so very painful that the young man could not coax the drowsy G.o.d.

He tossed restlessly on the hard bed of lava rock, and, though his eyes closed at times, they opened again as though fitted with springs.

The exciting events of the day and the chances he had taken were repeated over and over in his mind. For the first time in his life he had aimed a deadly weapon at another human being.

He knew that Bingo had fallen by his hand. But, oddly enough, that fact did not sear his conscience. He had been accused of drowning Lester Parmalee, and the thought of that accusation now made him shrink and writhe.

He was guiltless of Parmalee's awful end; still, he shuddered at the thought that he might have been guilty. At one time he had felt such rage and animosity, through jealousy, that he might have struck Parmalee a fatal blow.

Drew had considered the missing man his rival for Ruth's affection.

Fate had removed that rival from his path. Yet, in doing this, fate had likewise raised a barrier to Drew's own happiness with Ruth.

The man groaned aloud at this thought. Then, fearing that some of the others would be disturbed, that Ruth might hear him, he arose and hobbled to the barrier.

He felt in a pocket of the coat he had put on while aboard the schooner and found pipe and tobacco. He filled the pipe and fell to smoking, hoping to soothe his jumping nerves, while he stared out across the moonlit open.

The tropical moonlight revealed 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 superst.i.tion 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.