Twilight was near and the dark cave entrance and frowning walls about the little harbor seemed more ominous than ever. He made haste to fill his rude cup with rum and return to his shelter. Then he gathered fuel, for fire at least would be a little company, and a strange dread of spending the coming night alone there on that haunted island was creeping over him. He did not believe in ghosts, but when he thought of the peculiar sequence of events, mingled with a slowly growing belief that some mysterious power was leading him--he knew not whither--a feeling that he was soon to face some ghastly experience, came like an icy hand grasping his in the dark. He could not shake that feeling off, and as he gathered driftwood, bits of dead spruce--anything that would burn, and piled the fuel near his shelter--his dread increased. What strange spell was it that had kept him four hours beside that wall-enclosed harbor unconscious of the lapse of time? Why had he not seen the fog coming until too late? And that keg and cave!--what did all these mysteries mean? Then, searching further along the shore for driftwood, he came suddenly upon a tangle of wreckage piled high among the rocks. It would serve as fuel, and he began to drag large pieces to his shelter. Three trips he made, and was just lifting the end of a broken spar, when right at his feet, and half-buried in the sand, he saw a white object. The night was fast approaching and he was in a hurry, but some impulse made him stoop, and there in the gathering gloom he saw--a grinning human skull! CHAPTER XXV. THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE.