I held my breath and kept utterly still, inwardly and outwardly, for
fear, I suppose, that the creature would become conscious of my
presence; but the distress I felt went far deeper than the mere sense of
personal safety, or the fact of watching something so incredibly active
and real. I became keenly aware of the dreadful psychic calamity it
involved. The realisation that Sangree lay confined in that narrow space
with this species of monstrous projection of himself--that he was
wrapped there in the cataleptic sleep, all unconscious that this thing
was masquerading with his own life and energies--added a distressing
touch of horror to the scene. In all the cases of John Silence--and they
were many and often terrible--no other psychic affliction has ever,
before or since, impressed me so convincingly with the pathetic
impermanence of the human personality, with its fluid nature, and with
the alarming possibilities of its transformations. "Come," he whispered, after we had watched for some minutes the frantic
efforts to escape from the circle of thought and will that held it
prisoner, "come a little farther away while I release it." We moved back a dozen yards or so. It was like a scene in some
impossible play, or in some ghastly and oppressive nightmare from which
I should presently awake to find the blankets all heaped up upon my
chest. By some method undoubtedly mental, but which, in my confusion and
excitement, I failed to understand, the doctor accomplished his purpose,
and the next minute I heard him say sharply under his breath, "It's out! Now watch!" At this very moment a sudden gust from the sea blew aside the mist, so
that a lane opened to the sky, and the moon, ghastly and unnatural as
the effect of stage limelight, dropped down in a momentary gleam upon
the door of Sangree's tent, and I perceived that something had moved
forward from the interior darkness and stood clearly defined upon the
threshold. And, at the same moment, the tent ceased its shuddering and
held still. There, in the doorway, stood an animal, with neck and muzzle thrust
forward, its head poking into the night, its whole body poised in that
attitude of intense rigidity that precedes the spring into freedom, the
running leap of attack. It seemed to be about the size of a calf, leaner
than a mastiff, yet more squat than a wolf, and I can swear that I saw
the fur ridged sharply upon its back. Then its upper lip slowly lifted,
and I saw the whiteness of its teeth. Surely no human being ever stared as hard as I did in those next few
minutes. Yet, the harder I stared the clearer appeared the amazing and
monstrous apparition. For, after all, it was Sangree--and yet it was not
Sangree. It was the head and face of an animal, and yet it was the face
of Sangree: the face of a wild dog, a wolf, and yet his face. The eyes
were sharper, narrower, more fiery, yet they were his eyes--his eyes run
wild; the teeth were longer, whiter, more pointed--yet they were his
teeth, his teeth grown cruel; the expression was flaming, terrible,
exultant--yet it was his expression carried to the border of
savagery--his expression as I had already surprised it more than once,
only dominant now, fully released from human constraint, with the mad
yearning of a hungry and importunate soul. It was the soul of Sangree,
the long suppressed, deeply loving Sangree, expressed in its single and
intense desire--pure utterly and utterly wonderful. Yet, at the same time, came the feeling that it was all an illusion. I
suddenly remembered the extraordinary changes the human face can undergo
in circular insanity, when it changes from melancholia to elation; and I
recalled the effect of hascheesh, which shows the human countenance in
the form of the bird or animal to which in character it most
approximates; and for a moment I attributed this mingling of Sangree's
face with a wolf to some kind of similar delusion of the senses. I was
mad, deluded, dreaming! The excitement of the day, and this dim light of
stars and bewildering mist combined to trick me. I had been amazingly
imposed upon by some false wizardry of the senses. It was all absurd and
fantastic; it would pass. And then, sounding across this sea of mental confusion like a bell
through a fog, came the voice of John Silence bringing me back to a
consciousness of the reality of it all--

"Sangree--in his Double!" And when I looked again more calmly, I plainly saw that it was indeed
the face of the Canadian, but his face turned animal, yet mingled with
the brute expression a curiously pathetic look like the soul seen
sometimes in the yearning eyes of a dog,--the face of an animal shot
with vivid streaks of the human. The doctor called to him softly under his breath--

"Sangree! Sangree, you poor afflicted creature! Do you know me? Can you
understand what it is you're doing in your 'Body of Desire'?" For the first time since its appearance the creature moved. Its ears
twitched and it shifted the weight of its body on to the hind legs. Then, lifting its head and muzzle to the sky, it opened its long jaws
and gave vent to a dismal and prolonged howling. But, when I heard that howling rise to heaven, the breath caught and
strangled in my throat and it seemed that my heart missed a beat; for,
though the sound was entirely animal, it was at the same time entirely
human. But, more than that, it was the cry I had so often heard in the
Western States of America where the Indians still fight and hunt and
struggle--it was the cry of the Redskin! "The Indian blood!" whispered John Silence, when I caught his arm for
support; "the ancestral cry." And that poignant, beseeching cry, that broken human voice, mingling
with the savage howl of the brute beast, pierced straight to my very
heart and touched there something that no music, no voice, passionate or
tender, of man, woman or child has ever stirred before or since for one
second into life. 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!"