sound, like a wraith on the water, swung away toward the light. 

Hardly breathing, the chums watched. 

“Boat, ahoy!” called Mr. Neale. There was no response. Like a craft of dreams, the boat moved off and they saw it progress steadily to shore. The light, green and gruesome, seemed to grow larger and brighter, and it turned slightly so that it lighted up the shelving bit of sand at the mouth of the inlet. Onto this small beach, with no sound that could be heard, the boat-load of wraith-like figures debarked. They seemed to be all white, like ghosts, in sheets or some sort of glimmeringly pale garments. They bent toward the boat in the glow that made them seem like luminous, greenish shapes of evil. 

“Look!” breathed Tom, “they’re lifting a chest!” They were! A chest or box of treasure was being shifted to the sand. Several others followed, still without answer to Mr. Neale’s repeated hail. 

Sam, who had refused to leave his retreat in the stuffy cabin, began to whimper. Through a port-hole, at their captain’s hail, he had stolen one glance. It was enough! 

Tom, too, was demoralized; but he dared not speak; only by the shaking of his hand on Nicky’s arm did his terror show. On shore there seemed to be a ghostly argument—suddenly, in the greenish glow, knives flashed out, were lifted, were plunged into action! Yet no sound of a fight came across the water. Figures dropped! Forms strove, hand in hand, knives upraised and driven downward! And at one side, a little above the rest, and sharply silhouetted as a tall form in white, stood the one who must be the leader, his cutlass held ready, but making no move. And then, all but one of the contending silent figures was down! The survivor of the battle turned and rushed toward his chief—the glow disappeared, and the silence, the darkness, closed down more eerily than ever! 

“Where are they—what are they doing?” gasped Nicky. Mr. Neale was drawing in on the line that secured the dinghy. 

“I’m going to see,” he said. For once there were no volunteers for the investigation! Tom begged his chief not to go, but Mr. Neale, with a word of encouragement, assuring them that he felt that the strange scene had more than a supernatural explanation, rowed away. The wait seemed interminable. They heard his oars squeal in the rowlocks, saw the dinghy reach the shore and lose way; then there was silence and an absence of movement. They could not make out what Mr. Neale was doing. “I wish I’d gone along, now,” Nicky said. “I ought 

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