This demon was plainly from the grave;yet you will observe he was abroad by day.And inconsistent as it may seem with the hours of the night watch and the many references to the rising of the morning star,it is no singular exception.I could never find a case of another who had seen this ghost,diurnal and arboreal in its habits;but others have heard the fall of the tree,which seems the signal of its coming.Mr.Donat was once pearling on the uninhabited isle of Haraiki.It was a day without a breath of wind,such as alternate in the archipelago with days of contumelious breezes.The divers were in the midst of the lagoon upon their employment;the cook,a boy of ten,was over his pots in the camp.Thus were all souls accounted for except a single native who accompanied Donat into the wood in quest of sea-fowls'eggs.
In a moment,out of the stillness,came the sound of the fall of a great tree.Donat would have passed on to find the cause.'No,'cried his companion,'that was no tree.It was something NOTRIGHT.Let us go back to camp.'Next Sunday the divers were turned on,all that part of the isle was thoroughly examined,and sure enough no tree had fallen.A little later Mr.Donat saw one of his divers flee from a similar sound,in similar unaffected panic,on the same isle.But neither would explain,and it was not till afterwards,when he met with Rua,that he learned the occasion of their terrors.