“Nonsense, Bickley! Those people were here right enough. Didn’t they eat our fruit and drink the water I brought them without ever saying thank you? Only, they are not human. They are evil spirits, and for my part I don’t want to see any more of them, though I have no doubt Arbuthnot does, as that Glittering Lady threw her arms round his neck when she woke up, and already he is calling her by her Christian name, if the word Christian can be used in connection with her. The old fellow had the impudence to tell us that he was a god, and it is remarkable that he should have called himself Oro, seeing that the devil they worship on the island is also called Oro and the place itself is named Orofena.” “As to where they have gone,” continued Bickley, taking no notice of Bastin, “I really don’t know. My expectation is, however, that when we go to look tomorrow morning—and I suggest that we should not do so before then in order that we may give our minds time to clear—we shall find that sepulchre place quite empty, even perhaps without the crystal coffins we have imagined to stand there.” “Perhaps we shall find that there isn’t a cave at all and that we are not sitting on a flat rock outside of it,” suggested Bastin with heavy sarcasm, adding, “You are clever in your way, Bickley, but you can talk more rubbish than any man I ever knew.” “They told us they would come back tonight or tomorrow,” I said. “If they do, what will you say then, Bickley?” “I will wait till they come to answer that question. Now let us go for a walk and try to change our thoughts. We are all over-strained and scarcely know what we are saying.” “One more question,” I said as we rose to start. “Did Tommy suffer from hallucinations as well as ourselves?” “Why not?” answered Bickley. “He is an animal just as we are, or perhaps we thought we saw Tommy do the things he did.” “When you found that basket of fruit, Bastin, which the natives brought over in the canoe, was there a bough covered with red flowers lying on the top of it?” “Yes, Arbuthnot, one bough only; I threw it down on the rock as it got in the way when I was carrying the basket.” “Which flowering bough we all thought we saw the Sleeper Oro carry away after Tommy had brought it to him.” “Yes; he made me pick it up and give it to him,” said Bastin. “Well, if we did not see this it should still be lying on the rock, as there has been no wind and there are no animals here to carry it away. You will admit that, Bickley?” He nodded. “Then if it has gone you will admit also that the presumption is that we saw what we thought we did see?” “I do not know how that conclusion can be avoided, at any rate so far as the incident of the bough is concerned,” replied Bickley with caution.