The Monster Men | Page 6

to carry them away to an unguessed fate.
The voyage from Singapore to the Islands was without incident.
Virginia took a keen delight in watching the Malays and lascars at their
work, telling von Horn that she had to draw upon her imagination but
little to picture herself a captive upon a pirate ship--the half naked men,
the gaudy headdress, the earrings, and the fierce countenances of many
of the crew furnishing only too realistically the necessary savage
setting.
A week spent among the Pamarung Islands disclosed no suitable site
for the professor's camp, nor was it until they had cruised up the coast
several miles north of the equator and Cape Santang that they found a
tiny island a few miles off the coast opposite the mouth of a small
river--an island which fulfilled in every detail their requirements.
It was uninhabited, fertile and possessed a clear, sweet brook which had
its source in a cold spring in the higher land at the island's center. Here
it was that the Ithaca came to anchor in a little harbor, while her crew
under von Horn, and the Malay first mate, Bududreen, accompanied
Professor Maxon in search of a suitable location for a permanent camp.
The cook, a harmless old Chinaman, and Virginia were left in sole
possession of the Ithaca.

Two hours after the departure of the men into the jungle Virginia heard
the fall of axes on timber and knew that the site of her future home had
been chosen and the work of clearing begun. She sat musing on the
strange freak which had prompted her father to bury them in this
savage corner of the globe; and as she pondered there came a wistful
expression to her eyes, and an unwonted sadness drooped the corners of
her mouth.
Of a sudden she realized how wide had become the gulf between them
now. So imperceptibly had it grown since those three horrid days in
Ithaca just prior to their departure for what was to have been but a few
months' cruise that she had not until now comprehended that the old
relations of open, good-fellowship had gone, possibly forever.
Had she needed proof of the truth of her sad discovery it had been
enough to point to the single fact that her father had brought her here to
this little island without making the slightest attempt to explain the
nature of his expedition. She had gleaned enough from von Horn to
understand that some important scientific experiments were to be
undertaken; but what their nature she could not imagine, for she had
not the slightest conception of the success that had crowned her father's
last experiment at Ithaca, although she had for years known of his keen
interest in the subject.
The girl became aware also of other subtle changes in her father. He
had long since ceased to be the jovial, carefree companion who had
shared with her her every girlish joy and sorrow and in whom she had
confided both the trivial and momentous secrets of her childhood. He
had become not exactly morose, but rather moody and absorbed, so that
she had of late never found an opportunity for the cozy chats that had
formerly meant so much to them both. There had been too, recently, a
strange lack of consideration for herself that had wounded her more
than she had imagined. Today there had been a glaring example of it in
his having left her alone upon the boat without a single European
companion--something that he would never have thought of doing a
few months before.
As she sat speculating on the strange change which had come over her

father her eyes had wandered aimlessly along the harbor's entrance; the
low reef that protected it from the sea, and the point of land to the south,
that projected far out into the strait like a gigantic index finger pointing
toward the mainland, the foliage covered heights of which were just
visible above the western horizon.
Presently her attention was arrested by a tossing speck far out upon the
rolling bosom of the strait. For some time the girl watched the object
until at length it resolved itself into a boat moving head on toward the
island. Later she saw that it was long and low, propelled by a single sail
and many oars, and that it carried quite a company.
Thinking it but a native trading boat, so many of which ply the southern
seas, Virginia viewed its approach with but idle curiosity. When it had
come to within half a mile of the anchorage of the Ithaca, and was
about to enter the mouth of the harbor Sing Lee's eyes chanced to fall
upon it. On the instant the old Chinaman was electrified into sudden