Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from the
wonderfully illumined water, I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I
found it difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying
apparition. It seemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort
of flat-bottomed boat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down
the opposite shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking
across in our direction, but the distance was too great and the light
too uncertain for us to make out very plainly what he was about. It
seemed to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at us. His
voice came across the water to us shouting something furiously, but the
wind drowned it so that no single word was audible. There was something
curious about the whole appearance—man, boat, signs, voice—that made an
impression on me out of all proportion to its cause. “He’s crossing himself!” I cried. “Look, he’s making the sign of the
Cross!”

“I believe you’re right,” the Swede said, shading his eyes with his
hand and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a
moment, melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun
caught them in the bend of the river and turned them into a great
crimson wall of beauty. Mist, too, had begun to ruse, so that the air
was hazy. “But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?”
I said, half to myself. “Where is he going at such a time, and what did
he mean by his signs and shouting? D’you think he wished to warn us
about something?”

“He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably,” laughed my
companion. “These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish; you
remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed
here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man’s world! I
suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons, too. That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time
in his life,” he added, after a slight pause, “and it scared him,
that’s all.”

The Swede’s tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner lacked
something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly while he
talked, though without being able to label it precisely. “If they had enough imagination,” I laughed loudly—I remember trying to
make as much _noise_ as I could—“they might well people a place like
this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all
this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and
elemental deities.”

The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my friend was
not given to imaginative conversation as a rule. Moreover, just then I
remember feeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative; his
stolid, practical nature suddenly seemed to me welcome and comforting. It was an admirable temperament, I felt; he could steer down rapids
like a red Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and whirlpools better than
any white man I ever saw in a canoe. He was a grand fellow for an
adventurous trip, a tower of strength when untoward things happened. I
looked at his strong face and light curly hair as he staggered along
under his pile of driftwood (twice the size of mine! ), and I
experienced a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly glad just then
that the Swede was—what he was, and that he never made remarks that
suggested more than they said. “The river’s still rising, though,” he added, as if following out some
thoughts of his own, and dropping his load with a gasp. “This island
will be under water in two days if it goes on.”

“I wish the _wind_ would go down,” I said. “I don’t care a fig for the
river.”

The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off at ten
minutes’ notice, and the more water the better we liked it. It meant an
increasing current and the obliteration of the treacherous shingle-beds
that so often threatened to tear the bottom out of our canoe. Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with the sun. It
seemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the
willows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes,
like the explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the
island in great flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the
sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, driving along through
space. But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after supper the full
moon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of
shouting willows with a light like the day. We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking, listening to the
noises of the night round us, and talking happily of the journey we had
already made, and of our plans ahead. The map lay spread in the door of
the tent, but the high wind made it hard to study, and presently we
lowered the curtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was
enough to smoke and see each other’s faces by, and the sparks flew
about overhead like fireworks. A few yards beyond, the river gurgled
and hissed, and from time to time a heavy splash announced the falling
away of further portions of the bank. Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the faraway scenes and incidents of
our first camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether
remote from the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual
moment more than was necessary—almost as though we had agreed tacitly
to avoid discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter
nor the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention,
though ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater
part of the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a
place. The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for the
wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the
same time to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make some
foraging expeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede
brought back always made me feel that he took an absurdly long time
finding it; for the fact was I did not care much about being left
alone, and yet it always seemed to be my turn to grub about among the
bushes or scramble along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long
day’s battle with wind and water—such wind and such water!—had tired us
both, and an early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made
the move for the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in
desultory fashion, peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and
listening to the thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place
had entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit
the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering
would have been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the
human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now
carried with it something almost illegitimate.