Something in Lewis prompted him to cry out with all his might:  “Don’t drink!  Don’t drink!” He heard the words echoing in the air, just as he had heard the voice in the boat; he felt that it was imperative to call out, and yet he could not:  he was paralysed; the words would not come.  He formed them with his lips, but no sound came.  He tried with all his might to rise and scream, and he could not move.  Then a sudden cold faintness came upon him, and he remembered no more till he woke and found the sun shining brightly.  Stewart was lying with his eyes closed, moaning loudly in his sleep.

Lewis tried to wake him.  He opened his eyes and stared with a fixed, meaningless stare.  Lewis tried to lift him from the platform, and then a horrible thing happened.  Stewart struggled violently and made a snarling noise, which froze the blood in Lewis’s veins.  He ran out of the house with cold beads of sweat on his forehead.  He ran through the wood to the shore, and there he found the boat.  He rowed back to the yacht and fetched some quinine.  Then, together with the skipper, the steward, and some other sailors, he returned to the ominous house.  They found it empty.  There was no trace of Stewart.  They shouted in the wood till they were hoarse, but no answer broke the heavy stillness.

Then sending for the rest of the crew, Lewis organised a regular search over the whole island.  This lasted till sunset, and they returned in the evening without having found any trace of Stewart or of any other human being.  In the night a high wind rose, which soon became a gale; they were obliged to weigh anchor so as not to be dashed against the island, and for twenty-four hours they underwent a terrific tossing.  Then the storm subsided as quickly as it had come.

They made for the island once more and reached the spot where they had anchored three days before.  There was no trace of the island.  It had completely disappeared.

When they reached Teneriffe the next day they found that everybody was talking of the great tidal wave which had caused such great damage and destruction in the islands.

THE MAN WHO GAVE GOOD ADVICE

To Henry Cust

When he was a child his baby brother came to him one day and said that their elder brother, who was grown up, had got a beautiful small ship in his room.  Should he ask him for it?  The child who gave good advice said:  “No, if you ask him for it he will say you are a spoilt child; but go and play in his room with it before he gets up in the morning, and he will give it to you.”  The baby brother followed this advice, and sure enough two days afterwards he appeared triumphant in the nursery with the ship in his hands, saying:  “He said I might choose, the ship or the picture-book.”  Now the picture-book was a coloured edition of Baron Munchausen’s adventures; the boy who gave good advice had seen it and hankered for it.  As the baby brother had refused it there could be no harm in asking for it, so the next time his elder brother sent him on an errand (it was to fetch a pin-cushion from his room) judging the moment to be propitious, he said to him:  “May I have the picture-book that baby wouldn’t have?” “I don’t like little boys who ask,” answered the big brother, and there the matter ended.