It echoed away among the fog and
the trees and lost itself somewhere out over the hidden sea. And some
part of myself--something that was far more than the mere act of
intense listening--went out with it, and for several minutes I lost
consciousness of my surroundings and felt utterly absorbed in the pain
of another stricken fellow-creature. Again the voice of John Silence recalled me to myself. “Hark!” he said aloud. “Hark!”

His tone galvanised me afresh. We stood listening side by side. Far across the island, faintly sounding through the trees and
brushwood, came a similar, answering cry. Shrill, yet wonderfully
musical, shaking the heart with a singular wild sweetness that defies
description, we heard it rise and fall upon the night air. “It’s across the lagoon,” Dr. Silence cried, but this time in full
tones that paid no tribute to caution. “It’s Joan! She’s answering him!”

Again the wonderful cry rose and fell, and that same instant the animal
lowered its head, and, muzzle to earth, set off on a swift easy canter
that took it off into the mist and out of our sight like a thing of
wind and vision. The doctor made a quick dash to the door of Sangree’s tent, and,
following close at his heels, I peered in and caught a momentary
glimpse of the small, shrunken body lying upon the branches but half
covered by the blankets--the cage from which most of the life, and not
a little of the actual corporeal substance, had escaped into that other
form of life and energy, the body of passion and desire. By another of those swift, incalculable processes which at this stage
of my apprenticeship I failed often to grasp, Dr. Silence reclosed the
circle about the tent and body. “Now it cannot return till I permit it,” he said, and the next second
was off at full speed into the woods, with myself close behind him. I had already had some experience of my companion’s ability to run
swiftly through a dense wood, and I now had the further proof of his
power almost to see in the dark. For, once we left the open space
about the tents, the trees seemed to absorb all the remaining vestiges
of light, and I understood that special sensibility that is said to
develop in the blind--the sense of obstacles. And twice as we ran we heard the sound of that dismal howling drawing
nearer and nearer to the answering faint cry from the point of the
island whither we were going. Then, suddenly, the trees fell away, and we emerged, hot and
breathless, upon the rocky point where the granite slabs ran bare into
the sea. It was like passing into the clearness of open day. And there,
sharply defined against sea and sky, stood the figure of a human being. It was Joan. I at once saw that there was something about her appearance that was
singular and unusual, but it was only when we had moved quite close
that I recognised what caused it. For while the lips wore a smile that
lit the whole face with a happiness I had never seen there before, the
eyes themselves were fixed in a steady, sightless stare as though they
were lifeless and made of glass. I made an impulsive forward movement, but Dr. Silence instantly dragged
me back. “No,” he cried, “don’t wake her!”

“What do you mean?” I replied aloud, struggling in his grasp. “She’s asleep. It’s somnambulistic. The shock might injure her
permanently.”

I turned and peered closely into his face. He was absolutely calm. I
began to understand a little more, catching, I suppose, something of
his strong thinking. “Walking in her sleep, you mean?”

He nodded. “She’s on her way to meet him. From the very beginning he
must have drawn her--irresistibly.”

“But the torn tent and the wounded flesh?”

“When she did not sleep deep enough to enter the somnambulistic trance
he missed her--he went instinctively and in all innocence to seek her
out--with the result, of course, that she woke and was terrified----”

“Then in their heart of hearts they love?” I asked finally. John Silence smiled his inscrutable smile: “Profoundly,” he answered,
“and as simply as only primitive souls can love. If only they both come
to realise it in their normal waking states his Double will cease these
nocturnal excursions. He will be cured, and at rest.”

The words had hardly left his lips when there was a sound of rustling
branches on our left, and the very next instant the dense brushwood
parted where it was darkest and out rushed the swift form of an animal
at full gallop. The noise of feet was scarcely audible, but in that
utter stillness I heard the heavy panting breath and caught the swish
of the low bushes against its sides. It went straight towards Joan--and
as it went the girl lifted her head and turned to meet it. And the same
instant a canoe that had been creeping silently and unobserved round
the inner shore of the lagoon, emerged from the shadows and defined
itself upon the water with a figure at the middle thwart. It was
Maloney. It was only afterwards I realised that we were invisible to him where
we stood against the dark background of trees; the figures of Joan and
the animal he saw plainly, but not Dr. Silence and myself standing just
beyond them. He stood up in the canoe and pointed with his right arm. I
saw something gleam in his hand. “Stand aside, Joan girl, or you’ll get hit,” he shouted, his voice
ringing horribly through the deep stillness, and the same instant a
pistol-shot cracked out with a burst of flame and smoke, and the figure
of the animal, with one tremendous leap into the air, fell back in the
shadows and disappeared like a shape of night and fog. Instantly, then,
Joan opened her eyes, looked in a dazed fashion about her, and pressing
both hands against her heart, fell with a sharp cry into my arms that
were just in time to catch her. And an answering cry sounded across the lagoon--thin, wailing, piteous. It came from Sangree’s tent. “Fool!” cried Dr. Silence, “you’ve wounded him!” and before we could
move or realise quite what it meant, he was in the canoe and half-way
across the lagoon. Some kind of similar abuse came in a torrent from my lips too--though
I cannot remember the actual words--as I cursed the man for his
disobedience and tried to make the girl comfortable on the ground. But
the clergyman was more practical. He was spreading his coat over her
and dashing water on her face. “It’s not Joan I’ve killed at any rate,” I heard him mutter as she
turned and opened her eyes and smiled faintly up in his face. “I swear
the bullet went straight.”

Joan stared at him; she was still dazed and bewildered, and still
imagined herself with the companion of her trance. The strange lucidity
of the somnambulist still hung over her brain and mind, though
outwardly she appeared troubled and confused. “Where has he gone to? He disappeared so suddenly, crying that he was
hurt,” she asked, looking at her father as though she did not recognise
him.