TIME'S FINGER 285 



remote, almost inaccessible, uninviting region, at the 

 very centre of which the alluring stone glittered. Of 

 those who rashly determined to gaze at the prodigy at 

 close quarters, some never returned. Those who did 

 come back were vexed with burning and smarting pains ; 

 they suffered illnesses ; their skin broke out into blotches ; 

 they became old and enfeebled prematurely; and all, 

 whether they survived for a few irritating weeks or a 

 few sad years, wore to the end a startled, awe-struck 

 air. "That fella no more sit down quiet; him frait all 

 time," Wylo explained. And the stone was good to 

 look at. Sometimes it was white like water; some- 

 times blue, like the sea; sometimes red, like "carrie- 

 wy-in-gin" (sunrise). Sometimes it shook, and then it 

 became so bright that the eyes were dazzled. The 

 star-like stone had been on the rock for all time, protected 

 by distance and mystery. Was it not, indeed, the 

 eye of the "debil-debil" who had custody of the light- 

 ning and thunder imps, and could it not be elevated or 

 depressed Hke the eye of a sand-crab ? No intruder had 

 ever escaped its vigil or the consequences of his temerity. 



We were camped under the lee of a low sand-dune, 

 the top of which commanded Pun-nul Bay. As the 

 wind swayed its scalplock of twisted shrubs, the dune 

 quivered, and rivulets of singing sand, almost as fluid 

 and as unstable as water, trickled down, for it was one 

 of the rubbish-heaps of the sea, over the brink of which 

 waste was unceasingly shot. 



The maze of mangroves whence weird hoots and 

 bubbling cries and sharp clicks came at night, the 

 stealthy sand marching over the land, the barren slopes 

 of the mountain, and the misshapen rock, gave one's 

 thoughts a twist in the direction of the vague and mys- 

 terious. Wylo's continual harping on the wonderful 

 stone renewed the old longing for adventure. He had 



