She ran wild. So completely, too, was she possessed by the strong spirit of the
place that the little human fear she had yielded to so strangely on
our arrival seemed to have been utterly dispossessed. As I hoped and
expected, she made no reference to our conversation of the first
evening. Sangree bothered her with no special attentions, and after
all they were very little together. His behaviour was perfect in that
respect, and I, for my part, hardly gave the matter another thought. Joan was ever a prey to vivid fancies of one kind or another, and this
was one of them. Mercifully for the happiness of all concerned, it had
melted away before the spirit of busy, active life and deep content
that reigned over the island. Every one was intensely alive, and peace
was upon all. *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile the effect of the camp-life began to tell. Always a searching
test of character, its results, sooner or later, are infallible, for
it acts upon the soul as swiftly and surely as the hypo bath upon the
negative of a photograph. A readjustment of the personal forces takes
place quickly; some parts of the personality go to sleep, others wake
up: but the first sweeping change that the primitive life brings about
is that the artificial portions of the character shed themselves one
after another like dead skins. Attitudes and poses that seemed genuine
in the city, drop away. The mind, like the body, grows quickly hard,
simple, uncomplex. And in a camp as primitive and close to nature as
ours was, these effects became speedily visible. Some folk, of course, who talk glibly about the simple life when it
is safely out of reach, betray themselves in camp by for ever peering
about for the artificial excitements of civilisation which they miss. Some get bored at once; some grow slovenly; some reveal the animal in
most unexpected fashion; and some, the select few, find themselves in
very short order and are happy. And, in our little party, we could flatter ourselves that we all
belonged to the last category, so far as the general effect was
concerned. Only there were certain other changes as well, varying with
each individual, and all interesting to note. It was only after the first week or two that these changes became
marked, although this is the proper place, I think, to speak of them. For, having myself no other duty than to enjoy a well-earned holiday,
I used to load my canoe with blankets and provisions and journey forth
on exploration trips among the islands of several days together; and
it was on my return from the first of these--when I rediscovered the
party, so to speak--that these changes first presented themselves
vividly to me, and in one particular instance produced a rather curious
impression. In a word, then, while every one had grown wilder, naturally wilder,
Sangree, it seemed to me, had grown much wilder, and what I can only
call unnaturally wilder. He made me think of a savage. To begin with, he had changed immensely in mere physical appearance,
and the full brown cheeks, the brighter eyes of absolute health, and
the general air of vigour and robustness that had come to replace his
customary lassitude and timidity, had worked such an improvement that I
hardly knew him for the same man. His voice, too, was deeper and his
manner bespoke for the first time a greater measure of confidence in
himself. He now had some claims to be called nice-looking, or at least
to a certain air of virility that would not lessen his value in the
eyes of the opposite sex. All this, of course, was natural enough, and most welcome. But,
altogether apart from this physical change, which no doubt had also
been going forward in the rest of us, there was a subtle note in his
personality that came to me with a degree of surprise that almost
amounted to shock. And two things--as he came down to welcome me and pull up the
canoe--leaped up in my mind unbidden, as though connected in some way
I could not at the moment divine--first, the curious judgment formed
of him by Joan; and secondly, that fugitive expression I had caught in
his face while Maloney was offering up his strange prayer for special
protection from Heaven. The delicacy of manner and feature--to call it by no milder term--which
had always been a distinguishing characteristic of the man, had been
replaced by something far more vigorous and decided, that yet utterly
eluded analysis. The change which impressed me so oddly was not easy
to name. The others--singing Maloney, the bustling Bo’sun’s Mate, and
Joan, that fascinating half-breed of undine and salamander--all showed
the effects of a life so close to nature; but in their case the change
was perfectly natural and what was to be expected, whereas with Peter
Sangree, the Canadian, it was something unusual and unexpected. It is impossible to explain how he managed gradually to convey to my
mind the impression that something in him had turned savage, yet this,
more or less, is the impression that he did convey. It was not that
he seemed really less civilised, or that his character had undergone
any definite alteration, but rather that something in him, hitherto
dormant, had awakened to life. Some quality, latent till now--so
far, at least, as we were concerned, who, after all, knew him but
slightly--had stirred into activity and risen to the surface of his
being. And while, for the moment, this seemed as far as I could get, it was
but natural that my mind should continue the intuitive process and
acknowledge that John Silence, owing to his peculiar faculties, and the
girl, owing to her singularly receptive temperament, might each in a
different way have divined this latent quality in his soul, and feared
its manifestation later. On looking back to this painful adventure, too, it now seems equally
natural that the same process, carried to its logical conclusion,
should have wakened some deep instinct in me that, wholly without
direction from my will, set itself sharply and persistently upon the
watch from that very moment. Thenceforward the personality of Sangree
was never far from my thoughts, and I was for ever analysing and
searching for the explanation that took so long in coming. “I declare, Hubbard, you’re tanned like an aboriginal, and you look
like one, too,” laughed Maloney. “And I can return the compliment,” was my reply, as we all gathered
round a brew of tea to exchange news and compare notes. And later, at supper, it amused me to observe that the distinguished
tutor, once clergyman, did not eat his food quite as “nicely” as he did
at home--he devoured it; that Mrs. Maloney ate more, and, to say the
least, with less delay, than was her custom in the select atmosphere
of her English dining-room; and that while Joan attacked her tin
plateful with genuine avidity, Sangree, the Canadian, bit and gnawed
at his, laughing and talking and complimenting the cook all the while,
and making me think with secret amusement of a starved animal at its
first meal.