Elaine, who had mechanically followed Grenville from the shelter, looked resignedly about. She had failed till now to think, concretely, of actually remaining, perhaps night after night, in such a place. "It was terrible!" she said, "--the accident--everything!--terrible!" She suddenly thought of the threat he had made--to compel her to love him as he loved her, before they should reach their home--and shivered anew at the unforeseen predicament in which she was plunged, and hated him more than before. "Bad business," he answered, briefly, "but at present the task before us is to cut a lot of grass and strew it about on the rocks to dry." He opened the stubby blade of his knife, glanced at it ruefully, and, selecting a bit of stone, began to whet its edge. But he halted the action abruptly. A low, weird sound, like a human wail, came from somewhere over behind them. CHAPTER VI VARIOUS DISCOVERIES The sound had no sooner died on the air than a second, far louder, and far more uncanny in its suggestiveness of someone in mortal pain, followed piercingly, up around the rock, and rang in their startled ears. The third sound more resembled a scream. It was immediately succeeded by a chorus of hideous cries and moans, singularly distressing. They rose to a pitch incredible; they seemed to involve every accent of human grief and torture, and to wrap the rock escarpment completely in an agonizing appeal. This chorus sank, but a haunting solo of wailing arose as before, to be followed again by the air-splitting scream, and at length once more by the mingling of many dreadful voices. The island exiles glanced at one another inquiringly, Elaine blanched white with awe. "By Heavens!--it can't be human," Grenville muttered, as the programme recommenced with only a slight variation. To Elaine's dismay he started for the cliff. "Mr. Grenville!" she cried, and helplessly followed where he went. The wail was dying, in a horrid series of feebler repetitions, when Grenville came to the edge of the wall and peered down below at the water. There was absolutely nothing to be seen in any direction. The direful sounds, fast progressing once more to that nerve-destroying climax, appeared to issue from a natural cove, a little along to the left. Grenville continued around the edge, to a point directly above them. But here, as before, there was nothing in all the sea suggestive of boats or beings. The tide, Grenville thought, ran in and out with particular force, reversing at a certain point, and performing singular movements in a basin of hollowed stone. Elaine had paused behind him, a rod or more from the brink. He waited deliberately for all the cycle of sounds to be repeated, then turned away with a smile.