Mrs. Maloney’s fifth interruption about the door of her tent, and her
further pointed observation that it was past nine o’clock, set us
lighting lanterns and putting the fire out for safety. But before we separated for the night the clergyman had a time-honoured
little ritual of his own to go through that no one had the heart to
deny him. He always did this. It was a relic of his pulpit habits. He glanced briefly from one to the other of us, his face grave and
earnest, his hands lifted to the stars and his eyes all closed and
puckered up beneath a momentary frown. Then he offered up a short,
almost inaudible prayer, thanking Heaven for our safe arrival, begging
for good weather, no illness or accidents, plenty of fish, and strong
sailing winds. And then, unexpectedly--no one knew why exactly--he ended up with an
abrupt request that nothing from the kingdom of darkness should be
allowed to afflict our peace, and no evil thing come near to disturb us
in the night-time. And while he uttered these last surprising words, so strangely unlike
his usual ending, it chanced that I looked up and let my eyes wander
round the group assembled about the dying fire. And it certainly seemed
to me that Sangree’s face underwent a sudden and visible alteration. He was staring at Joan, and as he stared the change ran over it like a
shadow and was gone. I started in spite of myself, for something oddly
concentrated, potent, collected, had come into the expression usually
so scattered and feeble. But it was all swift as a passing meteor, and
when I looked a second time his face was normal and he was looking
among the trees. And Joan, luckily, had not observed him, her head being bowed and her
eyes tightly closed while her father prayed. “The girl has a vivid imagination indeed,” I thought, half laughing,
as I lit the lanterns, “if her thoughts can put a glamour upon mine in
this way;” and yet somehow, when we said good-night, I took occasion to
give her a few vigorous words of encouragement, and went to her tent
to make sure I could find it quickly in the night in case anything
happened. In her quick way the girl understood and thanked me, and
the last thing I heard as I moved off to the men’s quarters was Mrs.
Maloney crying that there were beetles in her tent, and Joan’s laughter
as she went to help her turn them out. Half an hour later the island was silent as the grave, but for the
mournful voices of the wind as it sighed up from the sea. Like white
sentries stood the three tents of the men on one side of the ridge,
and on the other side, half hidden by some birches, whose leaves just
shivered as the breeze caught them, the women’s tents, patches of
ghostly grey, gathered more closely together for mutual shelter and
protection. Something like fifty yards of broken ground, grey rock,
moss and lichen, lay between, and over all lay the curtain of the night
and the great whispering winds from the forests of Scandinavia. And the very last thing, just before floating away on that mighty
wave that carries one so softly off into the deeps of forgetfulness,
I again heard the voice of John Silence as the train moved out of
Victoria Station; and by some subtle connection that met me on the very
threshold of consciousness there rose in my mind simultaneously the
memory of the girl’s half-given confidence, and of her distress. As by
some wizardry of approaching dreams they seemed in that instant to be
related; but before I could analyse the why and the wherefore, both
sank away out of sight again, and I was off beyond recall. “Unless you should send for me sooner.”


II

Whether Mrs. Maloney’s tent door opened south or east I think she
never discovered, for it is quite certain she always slept with the
flap tightly fastened; I only know that my own little “five by seven,
all silk” faced due east, because next morning the sun, pouring in as
only the wilderness sun knows how to pour, woke me early, and a moment
later, with a short run over soft moss and a flying dive from the
granite ledge, I was swimming in the most sparkling water imaginable. It was barely four o’clock, and the sun came down a long vista of blue
islands that led out to the open sea and Finland. Nearer by rose the
wooded domes of our own property, still capped and wreathed with smoky
trails of fast-melting mist, and looking as fresh as though it was the
morning of Mrs. Maloney’s Sixth Day and they had just issued, clean and
brilliant, from the hands of the great Architect. In the open spaces the ground was drenched with dew, and from the sea a
cool salt wind stole in among the trees and set the branches trembling
in an atmosphere of shimmering silver. The tents shone white where the
sun caught them in patches. Below lay the lagoon, still dreaming of
the summer night; in the open the fish were jumping busily, sending
musical ripples towards the shore; and in the air hung the magic of
dawn--silent, incommunicable. I lit the fire, so that an hour later the clergyman should find good
ashes to stir his porridge over, and then set forth upon an examination
of the island, but hardly had I gone a dozen yards when I saw a figure
standing a little in front of me where the sunlight fell in a pool
among the trees. It was Joan. She had already been up an hour, she told me, and had
bathed before the last stars had left the sky. I saw at once that the
new spirit of this solitary region had entered into her, banishing the
fears of the night, for her face was like the face of a happy denizen
of the wilderness, and her eyes stainless and shining. Her feet were
bare, and drops of dew she had shaken from the branches hung in her
loose-flying hair. Obviously she had come into her own. “I’ve been all over the island,” she announced laughingly, “and there
are two things wanting.”

“You’re a good judge, Joan. What are they?”

“There’s no animal life, and there’s no--water.”

“They go together,” I said. “Animals don’t bother with a rock like this
unless there’s a spring on it.”

And as she led me from place to place, happy and excited, leaping
adroitly from rock to rock, I was glad to note that my first
impressions were correct. She made no reference to our conversation of
the night before. The new spirit had driven out the old. There was no
room in her heart for fear or anxiety, and Nature had everything her
own way. The island, we found, was some three-quarters of a mile from point
to point, built in a circle, or wide horseshoe, with an opening of
twenty feet at the mouth of the lagoon. Pine-trees grew thickly all
over, but here and there were patches of silver birch, scrub oak, and
considerable colonies of wild raspberry and gooseberry bushes. The two
ends of the horseshoe formed bare slabs of smooth granite running into
the sea and forming dangerous reefs just below the surface, but the
rest of the island rose in a forty-foot ridge and sloped down steeply
to the sea on either side, being nowhere more than a hundred yards wide.