eyes roving about the room--the pitiful questioning
still upon his handsome features. Von Horn turned
toward the campong.

Virginia, deserted by all, even the faithful Sing, who,
cheated of his sport on the preceding day, had again
gone to the beach to snare gulls, became restless of
the enforced idleness and solitude. For a time she
wandered about the little compound which had been
reserved for the whites, but tiring of this she decided
to extend her stroll beyond the palisade, a thing which
she had never before done unless accompanied by von Horn--
a thing both he and her father had cautioned her against.

"What danger can there be?" she thought. "We know that
the island is uninhabited by others than ourselves, and
that there are no dangerous beasts. And, anyway, there
is no one now who seems to care what becomes of me,
unless--unless--I wonder if he does care. I wonder if
I care whether or not he cares. Oh, dear, I wish I knew,"
and as she soliloquized she wandered past the little clearing
and into the jungle that lay behind the campong.


As von Horn and Professor Maxon talked together in the
laboratory before the upsetting of vat Number Thirteen,
a grotesque and horrible creature had slunk from the
low shed at the opposite side of the campong until it
had crouched at the flimsy door of the building in
which the two men conversed. For a while it listened