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248 nevertheless, it was with silent trepidation that they hit the trail again.

On the next terrace, the lustrous green of mangoes and limes, mingling with the wilder tropical trees and shrubs, gave the first evidence which they had seen of human habitation, long years ago. But to the three explorers these traces of their own kind did not clear, but seemed to deepen the mystery, just as had the decaying foundations of the squatters huts, and the keel and ribs of a long-boat imbedded in the sand, which they had noticed from the cliff, a little farther back.

Men had dwelt here once—and had gone. The natives had vanished, too. Had never-ending misfortunes visited civilized white and naked black, as it had the wild buccaneers of the Spanish Main, until the very place seemed cursed by the "Voodoos" whom all born in the Caribbees fear! Could it be haunted? Here, at any rate, it was hauntingly lovely. It was a place for bright angels, not demons of the dark.

Giant tree-ferns brushed their faces. Little checkered serpents spiralled through the undergrowth. Above them jabbered busy macaws in their gay coats of vermilion and indigo and emerald. Lichens misted the great boles of the mahoganies with silver-white like summer hoar frost, and the flaming scarlet of poncianas framed the black tresses of her hair. And when, forgetting for a moment the ghastly relics of the island, she laughed aloud, Ben saw that the pearly-white sheen of orchids for which a merchant-prince would have given a fortune, exactly matched her teeth.

Then, as the crowning touch to this gay carnival of Na-