He thought of a score of documents the one-time captain of the barque might have thus desired to preserve, but the sun was rapidly nearing its purple horizon, and the old ship's hold was growing dark. Grenville gathered the last of the metal spoils he had found in an empty box, half rotted, on the floor. The tube he thrust firmly in his pocket. What with the cannon balanced on his shoulder, his box of rusted metal hugged beneath his arm, and his bow, club, and arrows clutched tightly in his hand, he presented a singular figure as he finally made his way along the darkening trail, and came at length to the clearing, to be hailed from the heights by Elaine. "Just for the sake of variety," he said, when he came to the terrace with his burdens, "we'll eat one more dinner of fruit." "I couldn't think what you had killed," said Elaine, "when I saw you coming with this," and she placed her foot on the cannon he had gladly dropped to the ground. "What is it, anyway?" "A pop-gun," he said, "to tickle my friend the tiger." She was instantly apprehensive. "You have met him again?" He had no intention of arousing her alarm. "The brute is still about the island. I should like his skin for a rug." "You could really shoot him with this?" "Well--I shall mount it, in any case, though I have my doubts of his standing while I blow a few rocks through his person." When he went for a fresh supply of fruits he brought up a log some four or five feet in length, with a burned-off prong at its end. This he intended to prepare as a "carriage" for the gun. He placed the pronged end down in his fire, to burn out a niche for the little brass piece, which he cleaned of its mud then and there. His preliminary work on the bit of ordnance was soon concluded. When his log had burned to a moderate depth, he removed it to a near-by rock and gouged the charred portions away. Into the hollow thus rudely formed, the breach of the gun loosely fitted, ready to be firmly bound in place. But the day was done, and Elaine had spread their "table," to which Sidney was glad to repair. He had mentioned nothing of the tube still fatly bulging his pocket. Until he should first determine what the cylinder contained, he meant to arouse no unnecessary speculations in the breast of his companion. How much she might yet have to know of the barque and the mummy chained in its cabin he could not determine to-night. That something sinister lurked behind the mystery which this and the two headless skeletons involved was his constantly growing conviction. It was not until night was heavily down, and Elaine had crept gladly to the comfort of her cave, that Grenville produced the brass cylinder, and stirred up new flames of his fire.