What was that strange-looking craft floating into that silent bay? As it came into full view, it looked like some spectral hulk. Waylao stared. She felt afraid. Was it some phantom derelict that was silently approaching that unknown isle? The deck was nearly level with the sea, and all awash with the waves. An old spanker swayed to and fro. The tattered canvas sail still hung just over the broken deck-house, and the jib flapped in the moonlight. But no one was at the helm.
As that strange derelict swerved with the tide, it heaved and came round the edge of the promontory into full view. A gleam of moonlight streamed through the palms, as it hugged the shore and fell slantwise across the deck.
Waylao crept out on to the promontory, then stopped, petrified with fright.
A terrible spectacle met her gaze, and the thought flew into her demented mind that this was some ghostly craft with a crew of devils aboard, who had come to take her dead child, and her, too, away to purgatory.
No wonder she shrieked with horror.
Even in the security of that little mission-room the old priest and I trembled and gasped at what we heard. No wonder Waylao’s scream broke the terrible silence of that awful scene, and at the sound the crew of huddled, ghostly shadows on the hulk’s deck moved.
Slowly one rose to its feet; then two more figures followed. The heads seemed to waver as though the eyes sought the four points of the compass with helpless indecision.
What were they? Devils or human beings? I will tell you. Those figures lifted their heads and turned their faces to the shore. They heard by instinct the direction of Waylao’s terrified call. They stared at her with shining, bulged eyes; they tried to open their gaping, fleshless mouths in ghastly efforts for speech. They were rotting, hideous skeletons.
By the remnant of that hulk’s deck-house stood a tall native chief. He and a beautiful native girl who clung to him alone looked human. They both stared with fright, first at Waylao, and then across the silent isle.
Waylao watched, paralysed with fear. Then from the deck arose two more skeleton figures—revealing their hideous, noseless faces.