The prisoners could not be seen from the landing-place, as the clump of trees to which they had been lashed was some little way up the ravine, and a huge boulder of black rock stood in front of it. Carew heard no sound of voices as he approached. He considered it very unlikely that the men had succeeded in freeing themselves from their bonds; but, prepared for any emergency, he held his revolver in his hand and walked round the corner of the rock. He looked towards the clump of dead brown trees. His hand relaxed its grasp, and the revolver fell with a ringing sound on the rocks. He was struck motionless with a great horror. He stood fascinated, staring before him with wide-open eyes, unwincing. He would have given worlds to have closed his lids and shut out what he saw, but he could not. It was as if some irresistible power was holding him there, compelling him to look until every horrible detail of the scene should be burnt into his brain for ever. It was only for a few seconds, and then the spell was broken. He covered his face with his hands and staggered back. Then turning from the sight, he rushed away, not caring whither, sobbing such sobs as the lost souls in hell may sob in their despair--a dreadful sobbing, that told of a hopeless agony too intense to be endured for long by weak human flesh. Suddenly he stopped short, looked wildly round him, raised his hands towards the skies, and, uttering shrill shriek upon shriek, threw himself on the ground. He rolled down the steep incline for some way, cutting his hands and face with the sharp rocks, and when at last a projecting stone prevented his farther descent, he lay foaming at the mouth and writhing convulsively in an epileptic fit. * * * * * The tragic spectacle the man had suddenly come upon might indeed well have made him, the guilty cause of it, go mad with horror. The fearful cries that had been heard from the vessel were now explained. The voracious land-crabs had done his work. He had gazed upon his victims, and he felt that his limbs were paralysed; but his brain was intensely, unnaturally active. It seemed to him that a voice had said, "Look, and grasp all that there is to see, and remember, before the relief of madness is allowed to thee. Thou hast murdered sleep, and shalt never know peace again. For ever, in the worlds to come, the picture of this that thou hast done shall be branded on thy soul!"