"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.

"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all very easily be accounted
for. It is unquestionable that the vibrations created by certain
musical instruments have definite and sometimes extraordinary effect
upon the nervous system. We accepted this as the explanation of the
reactions we had experienced, hearing the unfamiliar sounds. Thora's
nervousness, her superstitious apprehensions, had wrought her up to a
condition of semi-somnambulistic hysteria. Science could readily
explain her part in the night's scene.

"We came to the conclusion that there must be a passage-way between
Ponape and Nan-Tauach known to the natives--and used by them during
their rites. We decided that on the next departure of our labourers we
would set forth immediately to Nan-Tauach. We would investigate during
the day, and at evening my wife and Thora would go back to camp,
leaving Stanton and me to spend the night on the island, observing
from some safe hiding-place what might occur.

"The moon waned; appeared crescent in the west; waxed slowly toward
the full. Before the men left us they literally prayed us to accompany
them. Their importunities only made us more eager to see what it was
that, we were now convinced, they wanted to conceal from us. At least
that was true of Stanton and myself. It was not true of Edith. She was
thoughtful, abstracted--reluctant.

"When the men were out of sight around the turn of the harbour, we
took our boat and made straight for Nan-Tauach. Soon its mighty