It was the result, of course, of his intense
concentration of mind and forces, and pervaded the entire Camp and all
the persons in it. And as I watched the canvas shake and heard it boom
and flap I heartily welcomed it. For it was also protective. At the back of Sangree’s tent stood a thin group of pine trees, but
in front and at the sides the ground was comparatively clear. The
flap was wide open and any ordinary animal would have been out and
away without the least trouble. Dr. Silence led me up to within a few
feet, evidently careful not to advance beyond a certain limit, and then
stooped down and signalled to me to do the same. And looking over his
shoulder I saw the interior lit faintly by the spectral light reflected
from the fog, and the dim blot upon the balsam boughs and blankets
signifying Sangree; while over him, and round him, and up and down him,
flew the dark mass of “something” on four legs, with pointed muzzle and
sharp ears plainly visible against the tent sides, and the occasional
gleam of fiery eyes and white fangs. 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.