"This must be looked into," said Harry, resolutely. "Who will go with me to the ledge?"

"No—no—do not go," pleaded Mary, "see how the fire rages! The peak may explode before you come down, and you be swallowed up in the flames!"

Harry however was determined to go.

"If nobody will go with me," said he, "I will go alone."

Mary advanced to his side.

"I will go with you," said she; "if you are to perish, I will die with you."

The young man, however, would not permit the girl to accompany him.

"If what was seen was mortal," said Turk, "why, then, I'd go with you; but I don't care to have anything to do with spirits and sich like, which can give you a poke in the stomach, do you see, and yet you not be able to square off to 'em."

"Very well, then, I go alone," said Harry, as he sprang away.

He had not reached the foot of the cliff, when he felt a hand on his arm, and turned to behold Turk.

"Fact is," said the latter, "I won't see ye go alone, but if there's any fightin' to do with ghosts, you mustn't expect me to help you, for when I aim at a nose, I like to hit it, which is impossible with the noses of goblins and sich like, as your fist will go right through 'em."

The two soon were at the foot of the cliff, which both now commenced to ascend. As they advanced, the rumbling beneath them seemed to increase, shaking the cliff to its foundation.

At length they arrived near the ledge, where the heat was almost unbearable. On one side of them there was a wide cleft, in which a line of fire was seen, glowing like a red hot iron. The slightest mis-step on the part of the adventurers in their endeavors to reach the ledge, must precipitate them into the cleft.

To get to their destination, they must move along a narrow ridge not more than two inches wide, with nothing at the side of the rock to clutch except a slightly rugged surface which must afford them a very insecure hold.

"This is dang'rous traveling," remarked Turk, "worse than walkin' on a railroad track over a rottin bridge."

The two kept on, carefully making progress, until finally they were close to the ledge, upon which a sudden spring carried them.

Winding round the cliff, they could now see another ledge, but no sign of the strange figure. They clambered the rocky surface, exploring it on all sides, but saw no sign of what they were after.

"To my notion," said Turk, "that goblin has gone down to take a siesta, do you see, preparatory to comin' up agin, which, I take it, is a good hint fur us to make leg-bail."

"What is this?" inquired Harry suddenly, stooping and picking up a singular object.

It was a cocoanut branch twisted into an odd shape, bearing some resemblance to a pronged fork.

"Ay, ay, now, there's the pitchfork for sartin!" exclaimed Turk; "that goblin has left his instrumental be—behind him, and we may yet come upon his tail!"

"Hark, Turk," said Harry, somewhat sternly, "you must not talk in that way. This is in fact, no time for joking. See there," pointing above them as he spoke, to where lurid flames were shooting out from crevices in the rock, thus preventing their ascent.

Gazing below them they beheld the dark tops of the trees, far beneath.

There was no means by which they could reach the ground.

The flames meanwhile burning brighter and longer, every moment, until finally they scorched the flesh of the two men, whose situation from the intense heat, was becoming intolerable.

For a moment they stood looking at each other, puzzled to know what to do.

Then a sudden thought flashed across Harry's mind.

"There are coils of rope in the schooner," said he; "we can start from here to Brand, who, probably, is watching us, telling him to bring up and lower to us one of those coils of rope."

"Ay, ay, if he ain't afraid," answered Turk.

The two men shouting with united voices, pronounced the captain's name.

"Halloa!" was the response.

"We cannot get back the way we came. Bring us a rope from the schooner's wreck, and lower it to us."

Brand shuddered and turned pale.

Mary, who was near, besought him to hurry.

"No," he answered, in husky voice, "I do not care to go aboard that schooner!"

"Then I will go!" cried Mary, and away she went.

Bad as he was, Brand was yet man enough not to permit this girl to undertake such a difficult task.

He sprang after her, and soon boarding the schooner, advanced with lighted candle into the hold, casting fearful glances around him.

He saw nothing, however, to excite alarm, and so seizing a small coil, he emerged with it on deck.

He was about climbing over the bulwarks, when, chancing to turn his head towards the schooner's bows, he fancied he saw the phantom face of the drowned passenger as it was hastily withdrawn!

"P'shaw, this is mere imagination," muttered the captain, as he sprung over the rail to the beach, where he found Mary anxiously waiting for him.

"Quick! make haste!" exclaimed the young girl.

It almost seemed to Brand, as he encountered the gaze of those wild eyes, that he beheld a second phantom, so alike were the eyes of father and daughter.

Throwing the coil over his shoulders, he hurried along to the cliff and commenced the ascent, followed by Mary, who, in her anxiety for her lover's safety, would almost have followed the man into the very flames.

In a short time they were at a point, whence the rope might be lowered to the two imperiled men upon the ledge.

Brand, therefore, uncoiling the line, lowered the end to them at a point where the flames could not come into contact with it, fastening the other part to a spur.

It was evident, however, that the two must make good speed, else the strands would become so weakened by the heat that there would be danger of their giving way.

The two men found the rope, where they lowered it over the edge of the rocky shelf, long enough to reach to the ground, about one hundred and fifty feet beneath them.

Then Turk commenced the descent, succeeding in reaching the ground safely.

By this time the strands were so weakened that Brand was obliged to haul the rope up, to prevent its parting, and secure another turn around the rocky spur.

Then Harry, grasping the lower part, commenced to descend. He had got within about one hundred and twenty feet of the ground and within a few feet of the top of one of the trees, when from the branches, the captain, whose position afforded him a good view of the trees revealed in the volcano's lurid light, uttered a sudden wild cry, that rang above the din of the roaring fire.

Protruding from the foliage of the tree, towards which Harry was being lowered, the man beheld the long, lean neck and ghastly countenance of the apparition he so dreaded.

So great was the effect of this vision upon him that he let go the rope which descended swift as a shot.

Where now was Harry Glenville?