spread a thin upper covering of mold and dust until enough earth was deposited to support a small, stunted palm tree. As the four looked a strange, bluish radiance, seeming to be on the ground itself, showed the lower part of the tree trunk in relief against its faint glow. The light seemed to move about within a narrow radius. "It can hardly be phosphorus," stated Mr. Neale, keeping his voice low and his words calm to prevent any growth of superstitious fear. "What is it, then?" whispered Tom. "Sam may be over there," Nicky gave the logical explanation. But as he spoke they heard the swish of Sam's oar and the grate of the dinghy coming alongside on the port side. "Don't say a word," cautioned Cliff. "See if he mentions it." Sam did mention the light, and at once! "I don't like that, sar," he said to Mr. Neale, as he paid out the dinghy line and looped it over a stern cleat of the sloop. "I tell you, sar, I was educated not to believe in ghosts, sar, but we are right in the place where all the pirates hid gold and laid in wait for ships. If not the English and Spanish and French, then the Bahama buccaneers and the ones that started up their trade from Cuba before they were wiped out for all time." "Nonsense!" said Mr. Neale, rather sharply. "Pull up that dinghy, Nicky. Want to come along? We'll see what it's all about, eh?" "No, sar—don't you!" exclaimed Sam. Tom also whispered to Nicky. The latter, rather surprised at his formerly cool chum, who had kept his head admirably during their adventures among the Incas, was about to make a retort that would shame Tom, but he shut his lips, for once controlling his impulses. "There is nothing to fear," declared the captain and Nicky echoed his words stoutly, as did Cliff. Nicky and Mr. Neale rowed away. It was a short row to the islet, although they proceeded slowly because of the darkness and the proximity of coral under the water. The light disappeared before they reached the island. They could see quite plainly in the starlight that there was nothing on the small coral Key except the palm tree."Strange," observed Mr. Neale. "Maybe it was just some odd reflection of light from a star on the coral," Nicky said. "Only—it moved!" "Perhaps our imagination helped," Mr. Neale said, and that was the explanation he insisted upon when they returned to the Treasure Belle. The others accepted it, Cliff calmly, Tom rather silently. Only Sam objected. "No star, sar!" he declared. "We would still see the light—and no star is blue. But——" He drew closer to the little riding light which was on the mast and which they used as their only illumination that evening. "Back in my island there is a story, sar, that when a treasure is in danger ghosts appear to scare people away and when a treasure is not being 

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