I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could.  If by any chance the girl’s secret conjecture about Leavitt’s identity was right, it would be verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, and in that event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting aunt the shock of that discovery.

We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in placid water under the lee of the shore while the Sylph swung to and the sails fluttered and fell.  A vast hush lay over the world.  From the shore the dark green of the forest confronted us with no sound or sign of life.  Above, and at this close distance blotting out half the sky over our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha with scarred and blackened flanks.  It was in one of its querulous moods.  The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about.  In the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin, white trickle of lava.

There was no sign of Leavitt, although the Sylph must have been visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island.  I fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of his beloved volcano.  Otherwise he would have wondered what was bringing us back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill would have greeted us from the shore.  Instead, there confronted us only the belt of dark, matted green girdling the huge bulk of Lakalatcha which soared skyward, sinister, mysterious, eternal.

In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity.  Miss Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail, silently watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder: 

“Is it far inland—­the place?  Will it be difficult to find in the dark?”

Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out Leavitt at once.  A strange calmness overlay her.  She paid no heed to Lakalatcha’s gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, behind which lay the answer to her torturing doubt.

I acceded to her wish without protest.  Leavitt’s bungalow lay a quarter of a mile distant.  There would be no difficulty in following the path.  I would have a boat put over at once, I announced in a casual way which belied my real feelings, for I was beginning to share some of her own secret tension at this night invasion of Leavitt’s haunts.

This feeling deepened within me as we drew near the shore.  Leavitt’s failure to appear seemed sinister and enigmatic.  I began to evolve a fantastic image of him as I recalled his queer ways and his uncanny tricks of speech.  It was as if we were seeking out the presiding deity of the island, who had assumed the guise of a Caliban holding unearthly sway over its unnatural processes.