It was easy enough for men, a natural prey to superstition, and, with the memories of many crimes, to believe that the island was haunted, that the ghosts of those they had slain were riding the lightning, and that demons, taking the forms of animals, were waiting for them in the bushes.
But the swart leader was a man of courage and he still held his ruffians together.

He cursed them fiercely, told them to stand firm, to reload their pistols and to be ready for any danger.

Those who still slumbered by the fire were kicked until they awoke, and, with something of a commander's skill, the man drew up his besotted band against the mystic dangers that threatened so closely.
But Robert produced a new menace.

He was like one inspired that night.
The dramatic always appealed to him and his success stimulated him to new histrionic efforts.

He had planted in their minds the terror of animals, now he would sow the yet greater terror of human beings, knowing well that man's worst and most dreaded enemy was man.
He uttered a deep groan, a penetrating, terrible groan, the wail of a soul condemned to wander between the here and the hereafter, a cry from one who had been murdered, a cry that would doubtless appeal to every one of the ruffians as the cry of his own particular victim.