“I assume it’s a case of checkmate,” the American remarked after a few moments, gazing ruefully at the dangling bridge. “We’ll have to get back to the _Seal,_ and bring her round past the mouth of this plaguey river.” “I suppose there’s no chance of the chasm being narrower higher up,” Seymour hazarded, “so that we might jump it?” “Not an eyeful of a chance,” was the reply. “You can bet your last dollar that if this yer land-crack was jumpable anywhere hereabouts these wolfish brutes wouldn’t ha’ troubled to sling a bridge across. I take it the sooner we get back to the old boat the better for Garth and the professor. Say, what’s that?” Far away on the plain beyond the chasm an arch of light arose, flashing and scintillating with dazzling brilliance. High into the darkness it towered, like a golden rainbow, and, as the two men watched in amazement, against its shimmering surface appeared a number of strange, black figures. A few moments it hung thus, then vanished as mysteriously as it had come. “Wal,” remarked Silas, “I reckon that’s a real caution. What do you make of it, William?” But the baronet did not answer. He was puzzling over certain of the figures--weird, animal-like forms--which had appeared upon the arch. Strangely familiar they seemed to him, yet, try as he might, he could not call to mind where he had seen them before. He was still pondering the matter when they turned to retrace their steps towards the coast, and Haverly, though not knowing the cause of his abstraction, forbore to question him. A mile of the return journey they had covered when light came to Seymour’s mind. “I’ve got it” he cried. “Got what?” asked the millionaire. “The meaning of those signs on the arch,” was the answer. “I have been trying to recall where I saw those figures before. It has just flashed across me. Do you remember that visit Mervyn and I paid to an island in the South Atlantic?” “Ayuti?” “The same. Well, it was there I saw the signs. Both Mervyn and I learnt the language during our stay.” “Then I take it you can read them hieroglyphics?” “I can,” returned Seymour. “The six signs meant ‘_Leino yos tragumee!_’” “I’d be almighty obliged if you’d translate the same. I guess my list of languages don’t include Ayuti.” “It is a warning,” Seymour murmured reflectively, “and one that we cannot afford to neglect, though I cannot imagine why it was given, or why it should be in the language of Ayuti.” “But the translation?” “Let the white strangers beware!” “Jupiter! That’s kinder queer,” cried Silas, startled for once out of his composure. “The fireworks were mysterious enough, without this message. I reckon the citizens of this yer location are educated some, for all their peculiar appearance.” “You surely don’t consider that the wolf-men were responsible for the warning?” asked the baronet in surprise.