"Well, then," said Brand, shuddering, "he whom you saw just now among the trees, was no mortal vision. It is a phantom!"
"How know you that?"
"If the chief will take me a little ways off I will tell him," said Brand, not caring to have the young girl hear what he intended to say.
The chief did as requested, when Brand explained, saying that the phantom was that of a passenger who had accidentally fallen overboard from a vessel aboard which he (Brand), was third officer.
The superstitious natives are prone to believe weird stories, and the chief was no exception to the rule.
To his awe-stricken followers he at once explained what he had learned, when it was unanimously agreed that the lives of the two prisoners should be spared, at least for the present.
No good, the natives all agreed, could come of their disobeying the injunctions of a spirit.
Mary and Brand were therefore taken and seated near a bright fire, which had been kindled for comfort by their enemies.
They were treated to cooked breadfruit, cocoanut sauce, and other delicacies of the South Sea Islanders. Brand ate heartily, but poor Mary, almost maddened by her grief, would not even look at what was proffered her.
"Harry is dead! dead!" was the continual cry of her anguished soul.