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 superstition 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.