Now it seemed to come from the ground—seemed to issue from the grave before them! It was as if the dead man hidden away down there had uttered the words.
Frank Merriwell shrugged his shoulders, while his companion shivered and felt for his revolver. A cold chill swept over the big Yale man, as if he felt the touch of a dead hand. He was awed despite the fact that there was nothing superstitious in his character.
They listened, expecting to hear the whispers again, but there was such a silence in the woods as seemed to press down on them like a crushing weight. Not even a breath of a breeze reached the spot to rustle the trees, and no sound of the surf chafing against the distant rocky shore reached their ears.
It seemed at that moment that they alone were the only human living creatures on that uncanny island. A sense of desolation came upon them and made them feel as if they were far, far from human beings, buried as in the heart of a mighty desert.
They did not stir; they stood there listening.
Silence.
Once, far on a Western desert, Browning had ex
perienced the same feeling of loneliness, but then there was not the grewsome, ghostly fear that now clutched at his heart and chilled its beatings so it seemed to be struggling feebly like an imprisoned bird fluttering against the cruel bars of a cage.
The big fellow choked. There seemed to be a lack of pure air for him to breathe. He longed to cry out, but his tongue lay stiff and paralyzed in his mouth.
Then came the thought that some uncanny spell was being wrought about him, and that soon he would be body and soul in the power of the evil spirit of the island.