All about us the pines made
black splashes against the sky. It was an angry sunrise. Rain, indeed,
had already begun to fall in big drops. We turned, as by a common instinct, and, without speech, made our way
back slowly to the stockade, Maloney humming snatches of his songs,
Sangree in front with his gun, prepared to shoot at a moment’s notice,
and the women floundering in the rear with myself and the extinguished
lanterns. Yet it was only a dog! Really, it was most singular when one came to reflect soberly upon
it all. Events, say the occultists, have souls, or at least that
agglomerate life due to the emotions and thoughts of all concerned
in them, so that cities, and even whole countries, have great
astral shapes which may become visible to the eye of vision; and
certainly here, the soul of this drive--this vain, blundering, futile
drive--stood somewhere between ourselves and--laughed. All of us heard that laugh, and all of us tried hard to smother the
sound, or at least to ignore it. Every one talked at once, loudly, and
with exaggerated decision, obviously trying to say something plausible
against heavy odds, striving to explain naturally that an animal might
so easily conceal itself from us, or swim away before we had time to
light upon its trail. For we all spoke of that “trail” as though it
really existed, and we had more to go upon than the mere marks of
paws about the tents of Joan and the Canadian. Indeed, but for these,
and the torn tent, I think it would, of course, have been possible to
ignore the existence of this beast intruder altogether. And it was here, under this angry dawn, as we stood in the shelter of
the stockade from the pouring rain, weary yet so strangely excited--it
was here, out of this confusion of voices and explanations, that--very
stealthily--the ghost of something horrible slipped in and stood among
us. It made all our explanations seem childish and untrue; the false
relation was instantly exposed. Eyes exchanged quick, anxious glances,
questioning, expressive of dismay. There was a sense of wonder, of
poignant distress, and of trepidation. Alarm stood waiting at our
elbows. We shivered. Then, suddenly, as we looked into each other’s faces, came the long,
unwelcome pause in which this new arrival established itself in our
hearts. And, without further speech, or attempt at explanation, Maloney moved
off abruptly to mix the porridge for an early breakfast; Sangree to
clean the fish; myself to chop wood and tend the fire; Joan and her
mother to change their wet garments; and, most significant of all, to
prepare her mother’s tent for its future complement of two. Each went to his duty, but hurriedly, awkwardly, silently; and this new
arrival, this shape of terror and distress stalked, viewless, by the
side of each. “If only I could have traced that dog,” I think was the thought in the
minds of all. *       *       *       *       *

But in Camp, where every one realises how important the individual
contribution is to the comfort and well-being of all, the mind speedily
recovers tone and pulls itself together. During the day, a day of heavy and ceaseless rain, we kept more or less
to our tents, and though there were signs of mysterious conferences
between the three members of the Maloney family, I think that most of
us slept a good deal and stayed alone with his thoughts. Certainly, I
did, because when Maloney came to say that his wife invited us all to a
special “tea” in her tent, he had to shake me awake before I realised
that he was there at all. And by supper-time we were more or less even-minded again, and almost
jolly. I only noticed that there was an undercurrent of what is best
described as “jumpiness,” and that the merest snapping of a twig, or
plop of a fish in the lagoon, was sufficient to make us start and look
over our shoulders. Pauses were rare in our talk, and the fire was
never for one instant allowed to get low. The wind and rain had ceased,
but the dripping of the branches still kept up an excellent imitation
of a downpour. In particular, Maloney was vigilant and alert, telling
us a series of tales in which the wholesome humorous element was
especially strong. He lingered, too, behind with me after Sangree had
gone to bed, and while I mixed myself a glass of hot Swedish punch, he
did a thing I had never known him do before--he mixed one for himself,
and then asked me to light him over to his tent. We said nothing on
the way, but I felt that he was glad of my companionship. I returned alone to the stockade, and for a long time after that kept
the fire blazing, and sat up smoking and thinking. I hardly knew why;
but sleep was far from me for one thing, and for another, an idea
was taking form in my mind that required the comfort of tobacco and
a bright fire for its growth. I lay against a corner of the stockade
seat, listening to the wind whispering and to the ceaseless drip-drip
of the trees. The night, otherwise, was very still, and the sea quiet
as a lake. I remember that I was conscious, peculiarly conscious, of
this host of desolate islands crowding about us in the darkness, and
that we were the one little spot of humanity in a rather wonderful kind
of wilderness. But this, I think, was the only symptom that came to warn me of
highly strung nerves, and it certainly was not sufficiently alarming
to destroy my peace of mind. One thing, however, did come to disturb
my peace, for just as I finally made ready to go, and had kicked the
embers of the fire into a last effort, I fancied I saw, peering at me
round the farther end of the stockade wall, a dark and shadowy mass
that might have been--that strongly resembled, in fact--the body of a
large animal. Two glowing eyes shone for an instant in the middle of
it. But the next second I saw that it was merely a projecting mass of
moss and lichen in the wall of our stockade, and the eyes were a couple
of wandering sparks from the dying ashes I had kicked. It was easy
enough, too, to imagine I saw an animal moving here and there between
the trees, as I picked my way stealthily to my tent. Of course, the
shadows tricked me. And though it was after one o’clock, Maloney’s light was still burning,
for I saw his tent shining white among the pines. It was, however, in the short space between consciousness and
sleep--that time when the body is low and the voices of the submerged
region tell sometimes true--that the idea which had been all this
while maturing reached the point of an actual decision, and I suddenly
realised that I had resolved to send word to Dr. Silence. For, with
a sudden wonder that I had hitherto been so blind, the unwelcome
conviction dawned upon me all at once that some dreadful thing was
lurking about us on this island, and that the safety of at least one
of us was threatened by something monstrous and unclean that was too
horrible to contemplate. And, again remembering those last words of his
as the train moved out of the platform, I understood that Dr.