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diff --git a/old/11438-0.txt b/old/11438-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3757d07 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11438-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2096 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WILLOWS, BY ALGRENON BLACKWOOD *** + + +The Willows + +by Algernon Blackwood + +(1907) + + +Contents + + I. + II. + III. + IV. + V. + + + + +I. + + +After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube +enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters +spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country +becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low +willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a +fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and +across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word _Sümpfe_, +meaning marshes. + +In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and +willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal +seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their +silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering +beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have +no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft +outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of +the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they +somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. +For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, +waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, +too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their +underside turns to the sun. + +Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here +wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels +intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the +waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and +foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of +shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which +shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, +since the flood-time obliterates their very existence. + +Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river’s life begins +soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy +tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood +about mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening +before sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, +leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the +blue hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below +Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had +then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the +old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning +heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals +in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria +and Hungary. + +Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into +Hungary, and the muddy waters—sure sign of flood—sent us aground on +many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden +belching whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Pozsóny) +showed against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited +horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the +sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply +to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, +sandbanks, and swamp-land beyond—the land of the willows. + +The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps +down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the +scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, +and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut +nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization +within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the +utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, +winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we +allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held +some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat +audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom +of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others +who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to +trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them. + +Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most +tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and we at once began casting about +for a suitable camping-ground for the night. But the bewildering +character of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood +carried us in shore and then swept us out again; the willow branches +tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many +a yard of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a +great sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to beach +the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and laughing after +our exertions on the hot yellow sand, sheltered from the wind, and in +the full blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless blue sky above, and an +immense army of dancing, shouting willow bushes, closing in from all +sides, shining with spray and clapping their thousand little hands as +though to applaud the success of our efforts. + +“What a river!” I said to my companion, thinking of all the way we had +traveled from the source in the Black Forest, and how he had often been +obliged to wade and push in the upper shallows at the beginning of +June. + +“Won’t stand much nonsense now, will it?” he said, pulling the canoe a +little farther into safety up the sand, and then composing himself for +a nap. + +I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath of the +elements—water, wind, sand, and the great fire of the sun—thinking of +the long journey that lay behind us, and of the great stretch before us +to the Black Sea, and how lucky I was to have such a delightful and +charming traveling companion as my friend, the Swede. + +We had made many similar journeys together, but the Danube, more than +any other river I knew, impressed us from the very beginning with its +_aliveness_. From its tiny bubbling entry into the world among the +pinewood gardens of Donaueschingen, until this moment when it began to +play the great river-game of losing itself among the deserted swamps, +unobserved, unrestrained, it had seemed to us like following the growth +of some living creature. Sleepy at first, but later developing violent +desires as it became conscious of its deep soul, it rolled, like some +huge fluid being, through all the countries we had passed, holding our +little craft on its mighty shoulders, playing roughly with us +sometimes, yet always friendly and well-meaning, till at length we had +come inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage. + +How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much of its +secret life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as we lay in our +tent, uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be +caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is +its hurrying speed. We knew, too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools, +suddenly bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of +its shallows and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all +mere surface sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at +the banks. How it stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat upon +its face! And how its laughter roared out when the wind blew up-stream +and tried to stop its growing speed! We knew all its sounds and voices, +its tumblings and foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the +bridges; that self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; +the affected dignity of its speech when it passed through the little +towns, far too important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet +whisperings when the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured +down upon it till the steam rose. + +It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before the great world +knew it. There were places in the upper reaches among the Swabian +forests, when yet the first whispers of its destiny had not reached it, +where it elected to disappear through holes in the ground, to appear +again on the other side of the porous limestone hills and start a new +river with another name; leaving, too, so little water in its own bed +that we had to climb out and wade and push the canoe through miles of +shallows. + +And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its irresponsible youth, +was to lie low, like Brer Fox, just before the little turbulent +tributaries came to join it from the Alps, and to refuse to acknowledge +them when in, but to run for miles side by side, the dividing line well +marked, the very levels different, the Danube utterly declining to +recognize the newcomer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this +particular trick, for there the Inn comes in with a thundering power +impossible to ignore, and so pushes and incommodes the parent river +that there is hardly room for them in the long twisting gorge that +follows, and the Danube is shoved this way and that against the cliffs, +and forced to hurry itself with great waves and much dashing to and fro +in order to get through in time. And during the fight our canoe slipped +down from its shoulder to its breast, and had the time of its life +among the struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson, +and after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new arrivals. + +This was many days back, of course, and since then we had come to know +other aspects of the great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat +plain of Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun +that we could well imagine only the surface inches were water, while +below there moved, concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of +Undines, passing silently and unseen down to the sea, and very +leisurely too, lest they be discovered. + +Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds and +animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely +places in rows like short black palings; grey crows crowded the +shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water +that opened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds +of all sorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant +cries. It was impossible to feel annoyed with the river’s vagaries +after seeing a deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and +swim past the bows of the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us +from the underbrush, or looked straight into the brown eyes of a stag +as we charged full tilt round a corner and entered another reach of the +river. Foxes, too, everywhere haunted the banks, tripping daintily +among the driftwood and disappearing so suddenly that it was impossible +to see how they managed it. + +But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and the +Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was half-way to the +Black Sea, within seeming distance almost of other, stranger countries +where no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenly +grown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into +three arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers +farther down, and for a canoe there were no indications which one was +intended to be followed. + +“If you take a side channel,” said the Hungarian officer we met in the +Pressburg shop while buying provisions, “you may find yourselves, when +the flood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you +may easily starve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn +you not to continue. The river, too, is still rising, and this wind +will increase.” + +The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the matter of being +left high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the waters might be +serious, and we had consequently laid in an extra stock of provisions. +For the rest, the officer’s prophecy held true, and the wind, blowing +down a perfectly clear sky, increased steadily till it reached the +dignity of a westerly gale. + +It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a good hour +or two from the horizon, and leaving my friend still asleep on the hot +sand, I wandered about in desultory examination of our hotel. The +island, I found, was less than an acre in extent, a mere sandy bank +standing some two or three feet above the level of the river. The far +end, pointing into the sunset, was covered with flying spray which the +tremendous wind drove off the crests of the broken waves. It was +triangular in shape, with the apex up stream. + +I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous crimson flood +bearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in waves against the bank as +though to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two foaming +streams on either side. The ground seemed to shake with the shock and +rush, while the furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind +poured over them increased the curious illusion that the island itself +actually moved. Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great river +descending upon me; it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, +white with foam, and leaping up everywhere to show itself to the sun. + +The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to make +walking pleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From the lower end +the light, of course, changed, and the river looked dark and angry. +Only the backs of the flying waves were visible, streaked with foam, +and pushed forcibly by the great puffs of wind that fell upon them from +behind. For a short mile it was visible, pouring in and out among the +islands, and then disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, +which closed about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures +crowding down to drink. They made me think of gigantic sponge-like +growths that sucked the river up into themselves. They caused it to +vanish from sight. They herded there together in such overpowering +numbers. + +Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter loneliness, its +bizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and curiously, a singular +emotion began to stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in my +delight of the wild beauty, there crept, unbidden and unexplained, a +curious feeling of disquietude, almost of alarm. + +A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the ominous; many +of the little islands I saw before me would probably have been swept +away by the morning; this resistless, thundering flood of water touched +the sense of awe. Yet I was aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far +than the emotions of awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it +directly to do with the power of the driving wind—this shouting +hurricane that might almost carry up a few acres of willows into the +air and scatter them like so much chaff over the landscape. The wind +was simply enjoying itself, for nothing rose out of the flat landscape +to stop it, and I was conscious of sharing its great game with a kind +of pleasurable excitement. Yet this novel emotion had nothing to do +with the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of distress I +experienced, that it was impossible to trace it to its source and deal +with it accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to do with +my realization of our utter insignificance before this unrestrained +power of the elements about me. The huge-grown river had something to +do with it too—a vague, unpleasant idea that we had somehow trifled +with these great elemental forces in whose power we lay helpless every +hour of the day and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at +play together, and the sight appealed to the imagination. + +But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach +itself more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres +of willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the +eye could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, +standing in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, +waiting, listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows +connected themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind +insidiously somehow by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in +some way or other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty +power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us. + +Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one +way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains +overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests +exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or +another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human +experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They +tend on the whole to exalt. + +With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far +different, I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the +heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a +vague terror. Their serried ranks, growing everywhere darker about me +as the shadows deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke +in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here +upon the borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a +world where we were not wanted or invited to remain—where we ran grave +risks perhaps! + +The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely +to analysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet +it never left me quite, even during the very practical business of +putting up the tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for the +stew-pot. It remained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a +most delightful camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my +companion, however, I said nothing, for he was a man I considered +devoid of imagination. In the first place, I could never have explained +to him what I meant, and in the second, he would have laughed stupidly +at me if I had. + +There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here we +pitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit. + +“A poor camp,” observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent +stood upright, “no stones and precious little firewood. I’m for moving +on early tomorrow—eh? This sand won’t hold anything.” + +But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us many +devices, and we made the cozy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then +set about collecting a store of wood to last till bed-time. Willow +bushes drop no branches, and driftwood was our only source of supply. +We hunted the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were +crumbling as the rising flood tore at them and carried away great +portions with a splash and a gurgle. + +“The island’s much smaller than when we landed,” said the accurate +Swede. “It won’t last long at this rate. We’d better drag the canoe +close to the tent, and be ready to start at a moment’s notice. I shall +sleep in my clothes.” + +He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard his +rather jolly laugh as he spoke. + +“By Jove!” I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what had +caused his exclamation. But for the moment he was hidden by the +willows, and I could not find him. + +“What in the world’s this?” I heard him cry again, and this time his +voice had become serious. + +I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the +river, pointing at something in the water. + +“Good heavens, it’s a man’s body!” he cried excitedly. “Look!” + +A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept +rapidly past. It kept disappearing and coming up to the surface again. +It was about twenty feet from the shore, and just as it was opposite to +where we stood it lurched round and looked straight at us. We saw its +eyes reflecting the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body +turned over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of +sight in a flash. + +“An otter, by gad!” we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing. + +It was an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly +like the body of a drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far +below it came to the surface once again, and we saw its black skin, wet +and shining in the sunlight. + +Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, another +thing happened to recall us to the river bank. This time it really was +a man, and what was more, a man in a boat. Now a small boat on the +Danube was an unusual sight at any time, but here in this deserted +region, and at flood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real +event. We stood and stared. + +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. It was like talking out +loud in church, or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not +quite _safe_, to be overheard. + +The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept +by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us +both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there +beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of +another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the +souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even +to make use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery stirred +in me as I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the +leaves at the stars. For the last time I rose to get firewood. + +“When this has burnt up,” I said firmly, “I shall turn in,” and my +companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding +shadows. + +For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive that +night, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He +too was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not +altogether pleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him, +and instead of immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far +point of the island where the moonlight on plain and river could be +seen to better advantage. The desire to be alone had come suddenly upon +me; my former dread returned in force; there was a vague feeling in me +I wished to face and probe to the bottom. + +When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the waves, the spell +of the place descended upon me with a positive shock. No mere “scenery” +could have produced such an effect. There was something more here, +something to alarm. + +I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering +willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one +and all, each in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange +distress. But the _willows_ especially; for ever they went on +chattering and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly +crying out, sometimes sighing—but what it was they made so much to-do +about belonged to the secret life of the great plain they inhabited. +And it was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild +yet kindly elements. They made me think of a host of beings from +another plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all +discussing a mystery known only to themselves. I watched them moving +busily together, oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their +myriad leaves even when there was no wind. They moved of their own will +as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own +keen sense of the _horrible_. + +There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our +camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all +ready for an attack. + +The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very +vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their “note” either of +welcome or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because +the busy preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first +pause—after supper usually—it comes and announces itself. And the note +of this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me; we were +interlopers, trespassers; we were not welcomed. The sense of +unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We touched the +frontier of a region where our presence was resented. For a night’s +lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and +inquisitive stay—No! by all the gods of the trees and wilderness, no! +We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not +wanted. _The willows were against us_. + +Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know not whence, +found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening. What, I thought, if, +after all, these crouching willows proved to be alive; if suddenly they +should rise up, like a swarm of living creatures, marshaled by the gods +whose territory we had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps, +booming overhead in the night—and then _settle down!_ As I looked it +was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a +little, huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the great wind +that should finally start them a-running. I could have sworn their +aspect changed a little, and their ranks deepened and pressed more +closely together. + +The melancholy shrill cry of a night-bird sounded overhead, and +suddenly I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I stood upon +fell with a great splash into the river, undermined by the flood. I +stepped back just in time, and went on hunting for firewood again, half +laughing at the odd fancies that crowded so thickly into my mind and +cast their spell upon me. I recalled the Swede’s remark about moving on +next day, and I was just thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I +turned with a start and saw the subject of my thoughts standing +immediately in front of me. He was quite close. The roar of the +elements had covered his approach. + +“You’ve been gone so long,” he shouted above the wind, “I thought +something must have happened to you.” + +But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well, +that conveyed to me more than his usual words, and in a flash I +understood the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of +the place had entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone. + +“River still rising,” he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight, +“and the wind’s simply awful.” + +He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship +that gave the real importance to his words. + +“Lucky,” I cried back, “our tent’s in the hollow. I think it’ll hold +all right.” I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in +order to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung +them across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me +through the branches, nodding his head. + +“Lucky if we get away without disaster!” he shouted, or words to that +effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the +thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was +disaster impending somewhere, and the sense of presentiment lay +unpleasantly upon me. + +We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it up with our +feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have +been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my +friend’s reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the +ordinary July weather, than this “diabolical wind.” + +Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside +the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack +hanging from a willow-stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe +distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal. + +We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The +flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and +the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of +the wind against our taut little house were the last things I +remembered as sleep came down and covered all with its soft and +delicious forgetfulness. + + + + +II. + + +Suddenly I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress +through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the +canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve +o’clock—the threshold of a new day—and I had therefore slept a couple +of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as +before; something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There +was a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood. + +I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to +and fro as the gusts smote them, but our little bit of green canvas lay +snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting +enough resistance to make it vicious. The feeling of disquietude did +not pass, however, and I crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our +belongings were safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my +companion. A curious excitement was on me. + +I was half-way out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first took in +that the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of +leaves, made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and +stared. It was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and slightly +above me, were shapes of some indeterminate sort among the willows, and +as the branches swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves +about these shapes, forming a series of monstrous outlines that shifted +rapidly beneath the moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of me, I saw +these things. + +My first instinct was to waken my companion, that he too might see +them, but something made me hesitate—the sudden realization, probably, +that I should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there +staring in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember +saying to myself that I was _not_ dreaming. + +They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the +tops of the bushes—immense, bronze-colored, moving, and wholly +independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and +noted, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much +larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance +proclaimed them to be _not human_ at all. Certainly they were not +merely the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They +shifted independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream from +earth to sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached the dark of the +sky. They were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and +I saw their limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, +forming this serpentine line that bent and swayed and twisted spirally +with the contortions of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid +shapes, passing up the bushes, _within_ the leaves almost—rising up in +a living column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. +Unceasingly they poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with +a hue of dull bronze upon their skins. + +I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes. For a long +time I thought they _must_ every moment disappear and resolve +themselves into the movements of the branches and prove to be an +optical illusion. I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when +all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had +changed. For the longer I looked the more certain I became that these +figures were real and living, though perhaps not according to the +standards that the camera and the biologist would insist upon. + +Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a sense of awe and wonder +such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified +elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region. Our intrusion had +stirred the powers of the place into activity. It was we who were the +cause of the disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with stories +and legends of the spirits and deities of places that have been +acknowledged and worshipped by men in all ages of the world’s history. +But, before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something +impelled me to go farther out, and I crept forward on the sand and +stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the +wind tore at my hair and face; and the sound of the river burst upon my +ears with a sudden roar. These things, I knew, were real, and proved +that my senses were acting normally. Yet the figures still rose from +earth to heaven, silent, majestically, in a great spiral of grace and +strength that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of +worship. I felt that I must fall down and worship—absolutely worship. + +Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust of wind +swept against me with such force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly +stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently out of me. At +least it gave me another point of view somehow. The figures still +remained, still ascended into heaven from the heart of the night, but +my reason at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective +experience, I argued—none the less real for that, but still subjective. +The moonlight and the branches combined to work out these pictures upon +the mirror of my imagination, and for some reason I projected them +outwards and made them appear objective. I knew this must be the case, +of course. I took courage, and began to move forward across the open +patches of sand. By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it +merely subjective? Did not my reason argue in the old futile way from +the little standard of the known? + +I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly into the sky +for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete +measure of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge reality. Then +suddenly they were gone! + +And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great +presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. The +esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly flamed up +within me, and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look +round—a look of horror that came near to panic—calculating vainly ways +of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything +really effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down +again upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut +out the sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then burying my head +as deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the +terrifying wind. + + + + +III. + + +As though further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I +remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled +and restless sleep; and even then only the upper crust of me slept, and +underneath there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but +lay alert and on the watch. + +But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of terror. It was +neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of +something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and +smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting +bolt upright—listening. + +Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had +been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had +first become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had +not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with +difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my +body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered. +Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the tent +and weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was +this the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown +from the river by the wind and gathering in big drops? I thought +quickly of a dozen things. + +Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough from the +poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind. +Still half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next +gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the +tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised a loose flap and rushed out, +calling to the Swede to follow. + +But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. +There was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing +approached. + +A cold, grey light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the +faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead, +and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any +glow, and I saw the east reddening in streaks through the trees. +Several hours must have passed since I stood there before watching the +ascending figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly, +like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless +raging wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was on +me, my nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally tireless +apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the question. The river +I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a fine spray +made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt. + +Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidence of anything to cause +alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained wholly +unaccounted for. + +My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need +to waken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything; the +turned-over canoe; the yellow paddles—two of them, I’m certain; the +provision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree; +and, crowding everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those +endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string +of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand +whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the wind. + +I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, +so that I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the +same profound yet indefinable emotion of distress seized upon me again +as I saw the interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, +looking ghostly and unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked softly +here and there, still puzzling over that odd sound of infinite +pattering, and of that pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It +_must_ have been the wind, I reflected—the wind bearing upon the loose, +hot sand, driving the dry particles smartly against the taut canvas—the +wind dropping heavily upon our fragile roof. + +Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably. + +I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast-line had +altered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. +I dipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my +forehead. Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the +exquisite freshness of coming day. On my way back I passed purposely +beneath the very bushes where I had seen the column of figures rising +into the air, and midway among the clumps I suddenly found myself +overtaken by a sense of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure +went swiftly by. Someone passed me, as sure as ever man did…. + +It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward +again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror +diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember +saying to myself, for the winds often move like great presences under +the trees. And altogether the fear that hovered about me was such an +unknown and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt +before, that it woke a sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to +counteract its worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the +middle of the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river, +crimson in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was so +overpowering that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and almost brought +a cry up into the throat. + +But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the +plain beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half +hidden among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, +compared to which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at +all. + +For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of +the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different +view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the +relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. +Surely the bushes now crowded much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly +close. _They had moved nearer._ + +Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing +imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come +closer during the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved +of themselves? I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and +the pressure upon the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake +in terror. I swayed for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it +hard to keep my upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a +suggestion here of personal agency, of deliberate intention, of +aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into a sort of rigidity. + +Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd, +that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily +than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such +dangerous imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through +our minds and not through our physical bodies that the attack would +come, and was coming. + +The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came +up over the horizon, for it was after four o’clock, and I must have +stood on that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to +come down to close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, +creepily, to the tent, first taking another exhaustive look round +and—yes, I confess it—making a few measurements. I paced out on the +warm sand the distances between the willows and the tent, making a note +of the shortest distance particularly. + +I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all +appearances, still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. +Provided my experiences were not corroborated, I could find strength +somehow to deny them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade +myself that it was all a subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the +night, a projection of the excited imagination. + +Nothing further came in to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at +once, utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again that weird +sound of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my +heart that had made it difficult to breathe. + + + + +IV. + +The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy +sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just +time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent +door. + +“River still rising,” he said, “and several islands out in mid-stream +have disappeared altogether. Our own island’s much smaller.” + +“Any wood left?” I asked sleepily. + +“The wood and the island will finish tomorrow in a dead heat,” he +laughed, “but there’s enough to last us till then.” + +I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a +lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment +to the landing-place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the +banks flew by like the country from an express train. Bathing under +such conditions was an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the +night seemed cleansed out of me by a process of evaporation in the +brain. The sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the +wind, however, had not abated one little jot. + +Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede’s words flashed +across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave post-haste, and +had changed his mind. “Enough to last till tomorrow”—he assumed we +should stay on the island another night. It struck me as odd. The night +before he was so positive the other way. How had the change come about? + +Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy +splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our +frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly about the +difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the channel in +flood. But the state of his mind interested and impressed me far more +than the state of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He had +changed somehow since the evening before. His manner was different—a +trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice +and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold blood, but +at the time I remember being quite certain of one thing—that he had +become frightened? + +He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. +He had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings. + +“We’d better get off sharp in an hour,” I said presently, feeling for +an opening that must bring him indirectly to a partial confession at +any rate. And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: “Rather! If they’ll +let us.” + +“Who’ll let us? The elements?” I asked quickly, with affected +indifference. + +“The powers of this awful place, whoever they are,” he replied, keeping +his eyes on the map. “The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in +the world.” + +“The elements are always the true immortals,” I replied, laughing as +naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face +reflected my true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke +across the smoke: + +“We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster.” + +This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the +point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist +to extract the tooth; it _had_ to come anyhow in the long run, and the +rest was all pretence. + +“Further disaster! Why, what’s happened?” + +“For one thing—the steering paddle’s gone,” he said quietly. + +“The steering paddle gone!” I repeated, greatly excited, for this was +our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. “But +what—” + +“And there’s a tear in the bottom of the canoe,” he added, with a +genuine little tremor in his voice. + +I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face +somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning +sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got +up to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way +towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The +canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs +uppermost, the paddles, or rather, _the_ paddle, on the sand beside +her. + +“There’s only one,” he said, stooping to pick it up. “And here’s the +rent in the base-board.” + +It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed +_two_ paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think +better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see. + +There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a +little slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if +the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and +investigation showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in +her without observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At first +the water would have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but +once out in mid-stream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, +never more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and +sunk very rapidly. + +“There, you see an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice,” I +heard him saying, more to himself than to me, “two victims rather,” he +added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit. + +I began to whistle—a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly +nonplussed—and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was +determined to consider them foolish. + +“It wasn’t there last night,” he said presently, straightening up from +his examination and looking anywhere but at me. + +“We must have scratched her in landing, of course,” I stopped whistling +to say. “The stones are very sharp.” + +I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and met my eye +squarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation +was. There were no stones, to begin with. + +“And then there’s this to explain too,” he added quietly, handing me +the paddle and pointing to the blade. + +A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and +examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, +as though someone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that +the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow. + +“One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing,” I said feebly, +“or—or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown +against it by the wind, perhaps.” + +“Ah,” said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, “you can explain +everything.” + +“The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the +bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled,” I called out +after him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything +he showed me. + +“I see,” he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before +disappearing among the willow bushes. + +Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think +my first thoughts took the form of “One of us must have done this +thing, and it certainly was not I.” But my second thought decided how +impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either +of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen +similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a +suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed +the explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical nature +had suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes. + +Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear +actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the +clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his +_mind_—that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he +did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto +unmentionable events—waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected, +and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind +intuitively—I hardly knew how. + +I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the +measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows +formed in the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and +of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large +bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, +just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. +The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite +inexplicable; and, after all, it _was_ conceivable that a sharp point +had caught it when we landed. The examination I made of the shore did +not assist this theory, but all the same I clung to it with that +diminishing portion of my intelligence which I called my “reason.” An +explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity, just as some +working explanation of the universe is necessary—however absurd—to the +happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and +face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at the time an exact +parallel. + +I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at +the work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could +not be safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention +casually to the hollows in the sand. + +“Yes,” he said, “I know. They’re all over the island. But _you_ can +explain them, no doubt!” + +“Wind, of course,” I answered without hesitation. “Have you never +watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl +everything into a circle? This sand’s loose enough to yield, that’s +all.” + +He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him +surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He +seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could +not hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he +kept turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, +and out across the water where it was visible through the openings +among the willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held +it there for several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, +and I asked no questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe +with the skill and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his +absorption in the work, for there was a vague dread in my heart that he +would speak of the changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had +noticed _that_, my imagination could no longer be held a sufficient +explanation of it. + +At length, after a long pause, he began to talk. + +“Queer thing,” he added in a hurried sort of voice, as though he wanted +to say something and get it over. “Queer thing. I mean, about that +otter last night.” + +I had expected something so totally different that he caught me with +surprise, and I looked up sharply. + +“Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are awfully shy things—” + +“I don’t mean that, of course,” he interrupted. “I mean—do you +think—did you think it really was an otter?” + +“What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?” + +“You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it seemed—so _much_ +bigger than an otter.” + +“The sunset as you looked up-stream magnified it, or something,” I +replied. + +He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were busy with +other thoughts. + +“It had such extraordinary yellow eyes,” he went on half to himself. + +“That was the sun too,” I laughed, a trifle boisterously. “I suppose +you’ll wonder next if that fellow in the boat—” + +I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again +of listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the +expression of his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went +on with our caulking. Apparently he had not noticed my unfinished +sentence. Five minutes later, however, he looked at me across the +canoe, the smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly grave. + +“I _did_ rather wonder, if you want to know,” he said slowly, “what +that thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not +a man. The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the +water.” + +I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was +impatience, and a strain of anger too, in my feeling. + +“Look here now,” I cried, “this place is quite queer enough without +going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat, +and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going +down-stream as fast as they could lick. And that otter _was_ an otter, +so don’t let’s play the fool about it!” + +He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He was not in +the least annoyed. I took courage from his silence. + +“And, for Heaven’s sake,” I went on, “don’t keep pretending you hear +things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there’s nothing to hear +but the river and this cursed old thundering wind.” + +“You _fool!_” he answered in a low, shocked voice, “you utter fool. +That’s just the way all victims talk. As if you didn’t understand just +as well as I do!” he sneered with scorn in his voice, and a sort of +resignation. “The best thing you can do is to keep quiet and try to +hold your mind as firm as possible. This feeble attempt at +self-deception only makes the truth harder when you’re forced to meet +it.” + +My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say, for I knew +quite well his words were true, and that _I_ was the fool, not _he_. Up +to a certain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me easily, and I +think I felt annoyed to be out of it, to be thus proved less psychic, +less sensitive than himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half +ignorant all the time of what was going on under my very nose. _He +knew_ from the very beginning, apparently. But at the moment I wholly +missed the point of his words about the necessity of there being a +victim, and that we ourselves were destined to satisfy the want. I +dropped all pretence thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear +increased steadily to the climax. + +“But you’re quite right about one thing,” he added, before the subject +passed, “and that is that we’re wiser not to talk about it, or even to +think about it, because what one _thinks_ finds expression in words, +and what one _says_, happens.” + +That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent trying to +fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching the enormous +flood of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near our shores +sometimes, and we fished for them with long willow branches. The island +grew perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away with great gulps +and splashes. The weather kept brilliantly fine till about four +o’clock, and then for the first time for three days the wind showed +signs of abating. Clouds began to gather in the south-west, spreading +thence slowly over the sky. + +This lessening of the wind came as a great relief, for the incessant +roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our nerves. Yet the +silence that came about five o’clock with its sudden cessation was in a +manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the river had everything in +its own way then; it filled the air with deep murmurs, more musical +than the wind noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held +many notes, rising, falling always beating out some sort of great +elemental tune; whereas the river’s song lay between three notes at +most—dull pedal notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign to the +wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound +wonderfully well the music of doom. + +It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal suddenly of bright +sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made for +cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had already managed +to convey the suggestion of something sinister, the change of course +was all the more unwelcome and noticeable. For me, I know, the +darkening outlook became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself +more than once calculating how soon after sunset the full moon would +get up in the east, and whether the gathering clouds would greatly +interfere with her lighting of the little island. + +With this general hush of the wind—though it still indulged in +occasional brief gusts—the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the +willows to stand more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a sort +of independent movement of their own, rustling among themselves when no +wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common +objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they +stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; +and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the +darkness a bizarre _grotesquerie_ of appearance that lent to them +somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very +ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. The +forces of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were +focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves. For +thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my really +indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place present +themselves. + +I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus recovered +somewhat from the exhaustion of a disturbed night, but this only served +apparently to render me more susceptible than before to the obsessing +spell of the haunting. I fought against it, laughing at my feelings as +absurd and childish, with very obvious physiological explanations, yet, +in spite of every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I +dreaded the night as a child lost in a forest must dread the approach +of darkness. + +The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof sheet during the +day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely tied by the Swede +to the base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that too. From +five o’clock onwards I busied myself with the stew-pot and preparations +for dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, +onions, bits of bacon fat to add flavor, and a general thick residue +from former stews at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up +into it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of +plums with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile +of wood lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. +My companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between +cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice—an admitted privilege of +the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in +re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for +driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had +passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the +gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was not fully a +third smaller than when we first landed. + +The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me +from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran +up. + +“Come and listen,” he said, “and see what you make of it.” He held his +hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before. + +“_Now_ do you hear anything?” he asked, watching me curiously. + +We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only +the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent +surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a +sound began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound—something like +the humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the +darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated +at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell +nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much +as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, +repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as +it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened. + +“I’ve heard it all day,” said my companion. “While you slept this +afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could +never get near enough to see—to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was +overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, +I could have sworn it was not outside at all, but _within myself_—you +know—the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come.” + +I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened +carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I +could think of, but without success. It changed in the direction, too, +coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into remote distance. I +cannot say that it was ominous in quality, because to me it seemed +distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling +that made me wish I had never heard it. + +“The wind blowing in those sand-funnels,” I said determined to find an +explanation, “or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps.” + +“It comes off the whole swamp,” my friend answered. “It comes from +everywhere at once.” He ignored my explanations. “It comes from the +willow bushes somehow—” + +“But now the wind has dropped,” I objected. “The willows can hardly +make a noise by themselves, can they?” + +His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly, +because I knew intuitively it was true. + +“It is _because_ the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned +before. It is the cry, I believe, of the—” + +I dashed back to my fire, warned by the sound of bubbling that the stew +was in danger, but determined at the same time to escape further +conversation. I was resolute, if possible, to avoid the exchanging of +views. I dreaded, too, that he would begin about the gods, or the +elemental forces, or something else disquieting, and I wanted to keep +myself well in hand for what might happen later. There was another +night to be faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and +there was no knowing yet what it might bring forth. + +“Come and cut up bread for the pot,” I called to him, vigorously +stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held sanity for us both, +and the thought made me laugh. + +He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling +in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon +the ground-sheet at his feet. + +“Hurry up!” I cried; “it’s boiling.” + +The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was +forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless. + +“There’s nothing here!” he shouted, holding his sides. + +“Bread, I mean.” + +“It’s gone. There is no bread. They’ve taken it!” + +I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained +lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf. + +The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. +Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the +sound of my laughter also made me understand his. The stain of +psychical pressure caused it—this explosion of unnatural laughter in +both of us; it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was +a temporary safety-valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly. + +“How criminally stupid of me!” I cried, still determined to be +consistent and find an explanation. “I clean forgot to buy a loaf at +Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of my head, and I +must have left it lying on the counter or—” + +“The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning,” the Swede +interrupted. + +Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought angrily. + +“There’s enough for tomorrow,” I said, stirring vigorously, “and we can +get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles +from here.” + +“I hope so—to God,” he muttered, putting the things back into the sack, +“unless we’re claimed first as victims for the sacrifice,” he added +with a foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent, for safety’s +sake, I suppose, and I heard him mumbling to himself, but so +indistinctly that it seemed quite natural for me to ignore his words. + +Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it almost in +silence, avoiding one another’s eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then +we washed up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking, our minds +unoccupied with any definite duties, the apprehension I had felt all +day long became more and more acute. It was not then active fear, I +think, but the very vagueness of its origin distressed me far more that +if I had been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I +have likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant, and +filled the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous ringing +rather than a series of distinct notes. At one time it was behind and +at another time in front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from the +bushes on our left, and then again from the clumps on our right. More +often it hovered directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It was +really everywhere at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our +heads, completely surrounding us. The sound really defies description. +But nothing within my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled humming +rising off the deserted world of swamps and willows. + +We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing every minute +greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did +not know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of +preparation by way of defense. We could anticipate nothing. My +explanations made in the sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with +their foolish and wholly unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and +more clear to us that some kind of plain talk with my companion was +inevitable, whether I liked it or not. After all, we had to spend the +night together, and to sleep in the same tent side by side. I saw that +I could not get along much longer without the support of his mind, and +for that, of course, plain talk was imperative. As long as possible, +however, I postponed this little climax, and tried to ignore or laugh +at the occasional sentences he flung into the emptiness. + +Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly disquieting to me, +coming as they did to corroborate much that I felt myself; +corroboration, too—which made it so much more convincing—from a totally +different point of view. He composed such curious sentences, and hurled +them at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his main +line of thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were mere +bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering +them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick. + +“There are things about us, I’m sure, that make for disorder, +disintegration, destruction, our destruction,” he said once, while the +fire blazed between us. “We’ve strayed out of a safe line somewhere.” + +And, another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer, ringing much +louder than before, and directly over our heads, he said as though +talking to himself: + +“I don’t think a gramophone would show any record of that. The sound +doesn’t come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations reach me in +another manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which is precisely +how a fourth dimensional sound might be supposed to make itself heard.” + +I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little closer to the +fire and peered about me into the darkness. The clouds were massed all +over the sky, and no trace of moonlight came through. Very still, too, +everything was, so that the river and the frogs had things all their +own way. + +“It has that about it,” he went on, “which is utterly out of common +experience. It is _unknown_. Only one thing describes it really; it is +a non-human sound; I mean a sound outside humanity.” + +Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he lay quiet for a +time, but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling that it was a +relief to have the thought out, and to have confined it by the +limitation of words from dangerous wandering to and fro in the mind. + +The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget it? The +feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My thoughts ran +incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have given my +soul, as the saying is, for the “feel” of those Bavarian villages we +had passed through by the score; for the normal, human commonplaces; +peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a +ruined castle on the rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the +tourists would have been welcome. + +Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It was +infinitely greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some dim +ancestral sense of terror more profoundly disturbing than anything I +had known or dreamed of. We had “strayed,” as the Swede put it, into +some region or some set of conditions where the risks were great, yet +unintelligible to us; where the frontiers of some unknown world lay +close about us. It was a spot held by the dwellers in some outer space, +a sort of peep-hole whence they could spy upon the earth, themselves +unseen, a point where the veil between had worn a little thin. As the +final result of too long a sojourn here, we should be carried over the +border and deprived of what we called “our lives,” yet by mental, not +physical, processes. In that sense, as he said, we should be the +victims of our adventure—a sacrifice. + +It took us in different fashion, each according to the measure of his +sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely into a +personification of the mightily disturbed elements, investing them with +the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our +audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw +it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ancient +shrine, some place where the old gods still held sway, where the +emotional forces of former worshippers still clung, and the ancestral +portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell. + +At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the +winds from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual +agencies were within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have +I been so attacked by indescribable suggestions of a “beyond region,” +of another scheme of life, another revolution not parallel to the +human. And in the end our minds would succumb under the weight of the +awful spell, and we should be drawn across the frontier into _their_ +world. + +Small things testified to the amazing influence of the place, and now +in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by +the mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to +distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the +hurrying boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had +been robbed of its natural character, and revealed in something of its +other aspect—as it existed across the border to that other region. And +this changed aspect I felt was now not merely to me, but to the race. +The whole experience whose verge we touched was unknown to humanity at +all. It was a new order of experience, and in the true sense of the +word _unearthly_. + +“It’s the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one’s courage to +zero,” the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my +thoughts. “Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle, +the canoe, the lessening food—” + +“Haven’t I explained all that once?” I interrupted viciously. + +“You have,” he answered dryly; “you have indeed.” + +He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the “plain +determination to provide a victim”; but, having now arranged my +thoughts better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his +frightened soul against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a +vital part, and that he would be somehow taken or destroyed. The +situation called for a courage and calmness of reasoning that neither +of us could compass, and I have never before been so clearly conscious +of two persons in me—the one that explained everything, and the other +that laughed at such foolish explanations, yet was horribly afraid. + +Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the wood pile +grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the +darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet +beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray +puff of wind set the willows shivering about us, but apart from this +not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken +only by the gurgling of the river and the humming in the air overhead. + +We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the winds. + +At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as though the +wind were about to rise again, I reached the point for me of +saturation, the point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief +in plain speech, or else to betray myself by some hysterical +extravagance that must have been far worse in its effect upon both of +us. I kicked the fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion +abruptly. He looked up with a start. + +“I can’t disguise it any longer,” I said; “I don’t like this place, and +the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings I get. There’s +something here that beats me utterly. I’m in a blue funk, and that’s +the plain truth. If the other shore was—different, I swear I’d be +inclined to swim for it!” + +The Swede’s face turned very white beneath the deep tan of sun and +wind. He stared straight at me and answered quietly, but his voice +betrayed his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness. For the moment, +at any rate, he was the strong man of the two. He was more phlegmatic, +for one thing. + +“It’s not a physical condition we can escape from by running away,” he +replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some grave disease; “we +must sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a +herd of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. +Our only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps +may save us.” + +I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but found no words. +It was precisely like listening to an accurate description of a disease +whose symptoms had puzzled me. + +“I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing presence, they +have not _found_ us—not ‘located’ us, as the Americans say,” he went +on. “They’re blundering about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The +paddle and canoe and provisions prove that. I think they _feel_ us, but +cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet—it’s our minds +they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it’s all up with us.” + +“Death, you mean?” I stammered, icy with the horror of his suggestion. + +“Worse—by far,” he said. “Death, according to one’s belief, means +either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but +it involves no change of character. _You_ don’t suddenly alter just +because the body’s gone. But this means a radical alteration, a +complete change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution—far worse +than death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a +spot where their region touches ours, where the veil between has worn +thin”—horrors! he was using my very own phrase, my actual words—“so +that they are aware of our being in their neighborhood.” + +“But _who_ are aware?” I asked. + +I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm, the humming +overhead, everything except that I was waiting for an answer that I +dreaded more than I can possibly explain. + +He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a little over +the fire, an indefinable change in his face that made me avoid his eyes +and look down upon the ground. + +“All my life,” he said, “I have been strangely, vividly conscious of +another region—not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet +wholly different in kind—where great things go on unceasingly, where +immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes +compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the +destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as +dust in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the +soul, and not indirectly with mere expressions of the soul—” + +“I suggest just now—” I began, seeking to stop him, feeling as though I +was face to face with a madman. But he instantly overbore me with his +torrent that _had_ to come. + +“You think,” he said, “it is the spirit of the elements, and I thought +perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now it is—_neither_. These +would be comprehensible entities, for they have relations with men, +depending upon them for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who +are now about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is +mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch our +own.” + +The mere conception, which his words somehow made so convincing, as I +listened to them there in the dark stillness of that lonely island, set +me shaking a little all over. I found it impossible to control my +movements. + +“And what do you propose?” I began again. + +“A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them until we +could get away,” he went on, “just as the wolves stop to devour the +dogs and give the sleigh another start. But—I see no chance of any +other victim now.” + +I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eye was dreadful. Presently +he continued. + +“It’s the willows, of course. The willows _mask_ the others, but the +others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear, +we’re lost, lost utterly.” He looked at me with an expression so calm, +so determined, so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his +sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. “If we can hold out through +the night,” he added, “we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or +rather, _undiscovered_.” + +“But you really think a sacrifice would—” + +That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads as I spoke, +but it was my friend’s scared face that really stopped my mouth. + +“Hush!” he whispered, holding up his hand. “Do not mention them more +than you can help. Do not refer to them _by name_. To name is to +reveal; it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring +them, in order that they may ignore us.” + +“Even in thought?” He was extraordinarily agitated. + +“Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We +must keep them _out of our minds_ at all costs if possible.” + +I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its +own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then in the +awful blackness of that summer night. + +“Were you awake all last night?” he went on suddenly. + +“I slept badly a little after dawn,” I replied evasively, trying to +follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively were true, “but the +wind, of course—” + +“I know. But the wind won’t account for all the noises.” + +“Then you heard it too?” + +“The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard,” he said, adding, +after a moment’s hesitation, “and that other sound—” + +“You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of something +tremendous, gigantic?” + +He nodded significantly. + +“It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?” I said. + +“Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had +been altered—had increased enormously, so that we should have been +crushed.” + +“And that,” I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards +where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like +wind. “What do you make of that?” + +“It’s _their_ sound,” he whispered gravely. “It’s the sound of their +world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that +it leaks through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you’ll find +it’s not above so much as around us. It’s in the willows. It’s the +willows themselves humming, because here the willows have been made +symbols of the forces that are against us.” + +I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the thought and +idea in my mind were beyond question the thought and idea in his. I +realized what he realized, only with less power of analysis than his. +It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him at last about my +hallucination of the ascending figures and the moving bushes, when he +suddenly thrust his face again close into mine across the firelight and +began to speak in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness +and pluck, his apparent control of the situation. This man I had for +years deemed unimaginative, stolid! + +“Now listen,” he said. “The only thing for us to do is to go on as +though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so +forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question +wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our +chance of escape. Above all, don’t _think_, for what you think +happens!” + +“All right,” I managed to reply, simply breathless with his words and +the strangeness of it all; “all right, I’ll try, but tell me one more +thing first. Tell me what you make of those hollows in the ground all +about us, those sand-funnels?” + +“No!” he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. “I dare not, +simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you have not guessed I +am glad. Don’t try to. _They_ have put it into my mind; try your +hardest to prevent their putting it into yours.” + +He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and I did not +press him to explain. There was already just about as much horror in me +as I could hold. The conversation came to an end, and we smoked our +pipes busily in silence. + +Then something happened, something unimportant apparently, as the way +is when the nerves are in a very great state of tension, and this small +thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different point of view. I +chanced to look down at my sand-shoe—the sort we used for the canoe—and +something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled to me the +London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man had in +fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting but practical +operation. At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of the +modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought +of roast beef, and ale, motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen +other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The +effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically, I +suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain +of living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness +must seem impossible and incredible. But, whatever the cause, it +momentarily lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the short +space of a minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my +friend opposite. + +“You damned old pagan!” I cried, laughing aloud in his face. “You +imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolater! You—” + +I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to +smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of +course, heard it too—the strange cry overhead in the darkness—and that +sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer. + +He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front +of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me. + +“After that,” he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way, “we must go! +We can’t stay now; we must strike camp this very instant and go on—down +the river.” + +He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject +terror—the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him at +last. + +“In the dark?” I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical +outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. “Sheer +madness! The river’s in flood, and we’ve only got a single paddle. +Besides, we only go deeper into their country! There’s nothing ahead +for fifty miles but willows, willows, willows!” + +He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The positions, by one of +those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and +the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last +had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken. + +“What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?” he whispered with the +awe of genuine terror in his voice and face. + +I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine, +kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes. + +“We’ll make one more blaze,” I said firmly, “and then turn in for the +night. At sunrise we’ll be off full speed for Komorn. Now, pull +yourself together a bit, and remember your own advice about _not +thinking fear!_” + +He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some +measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion +into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost +touching, groping among the bushes and along the bank. The humming +overhead never ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we increased +our distance from the fire. It was shivery work! + +We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of willows +where some driftwood from a former flood had caught high among the +branches, when my body was seized in a grip that made me half drop upon +the sand. It was the Swede. He had fallen against me, and was clutching +me for support. I heard his breath coming and going in short gasps. + +“Look! By my soul!” he whispered, and for the first time in my +experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a human voice. +He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed the +direction of his finger, and I swear my heart missed a beat. + +There, in front of the dim glow, _something was moving_. + +I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the gauze +drop-curtain used at the back of a theater—hazily a little. It was +neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange +impression of being as large as several animals grouped together, like +horses, two or three, moving slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar +result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped +and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving +all over upon its surface—“coiling upon itself like smoke,” he said +afterwards. + +“I watched it settle downwards through the bushes,” he sobbed at me. +“Look, by God! It’s coming this way! Oh, oh!”—he gave a kind of +whistling cry. “_They’ve found us._” + +I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see that the +shadowy form was swinging towards us through the bushes, and then I +collapsed backwards with a crash into the branches. These failed, of +course, to support my weight, so that with the Swede on top of me we +fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was +happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of +icy fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering, twisted +them this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were +tightly shut; something in my throat choked me; a feeling that my +consciousness was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave way +to another feeling that I was losing it altogether, and about to die. + +An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the +Swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was +the way he caught at me in falling. + +But it was the pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me; it caused +me to _forget them_ and think of something else at the very instant +when they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the +moment of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing +of me. He himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and +that was what saved him. + +I only know that at a later date, how long or short is impossible to +say, I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow +branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a +hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he +had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow. + +“I lost consciousness for a moment or two,” I heard him say. “That’s +what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them.” + +“You nearly broke my arm in two,” I said, uttering my only connected +thought at the moment. A numbness came over me. + +“That’s what saved _you!_” he replied. “Between us, we’ve managed to +set them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It’s +gone—for the moment at any rate!” + +A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to +my friend too—great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a +tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the +fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that +the tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground. + +We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than once and +caught our feet in sand. + +“It’s those sand-funnels,” exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up +again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us. +“And look at the size of them!” + +All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving +shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly +similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far +bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some +instances to admit the whole of my foot and leg. + +Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing +we could do, and to bed we went accordingly without further delay, +having first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision sack and +the paddle inside the tent with us. The canoe, too, we propped in such +a way at the end of the tent that our feet touched it, and the least +motion would disturb and wake us. + +In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our clothes, ready +for a sudden start. + + + + +V. + + +It was my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch, but the +exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and sleep after a +while came over me with a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my +companion also slept quickened its approach. At first he fidgeted and +constantly sat up, asking me if I “heard this” or “heard that.” He +tossed about on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving and the +river had risen over the point of the island, but each time I went out +to look I returned with the report that all was well, and finally he +grew calmer and lay still. Then at length his breathing became regular +and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring—the first and only time in +my life when snoring has been a welcome and calming influence. + +This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before dozing off. + +A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my +face. But something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and +my first thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress on +to my own in his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same +moment it came to me that the tent was _surrounded_. That sound of +multitudinous soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the +night with horror. + +I called again to him, louder than before. He did not answer, but I +missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the +tent was down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the +darkness to hook it back securely, and it was then for the first time I +realized positively that the Swede was not here. He had gone. + +I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the +moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that +surrounded me completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens +at once. It was that same familiar humming—gone mad! A swarm of great +invisible bees might have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to +thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with +difficulty. + +But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate. + +The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light spread +upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind +stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the +pale sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about +the island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the +first words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, +and the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet +round me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over +roots, and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the +preventing branches. + +Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island’s point and saw a +dark figure outlined between the water and the sky. It was the Swede. +And already he had one foot in the river! A moment more and he would +have taken the plunge. + +I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging +him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously, +making a noise all the time just like that cursed humming, and using +the most outlandish phrases in his anger about “going _inside_ to +Them,” and “taking the way of the water and the wind,” and God only +knows what more besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but +which turned me sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in +the end I managed to get him into the comparative safety of the tent, +and flung him breathless and cursing upon the mattress where I held him +until the fit had passed. + +I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm, +coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming +and pattering outside—I think this was almost the strangest part of the +whole business perhaps. For he had just opened his eyes and turned his +tired face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through +the doorway, and said, for all the world just like a frightened child: + +“My life, old man—it’s my life I owe you. But it’s all over now anyhow. +They’ve found a victim in our place!” + +Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally +under my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to snore again as +healthily as though nothing had happened and he had never tried to +offer his own life as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight +woke him three hours later—hours of ceaseless vigil for me—it became so +clear to me that he remembered absolutely nothing of what he had +attempted to do, that I deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no +dangerous questions. + +He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun was already +high in a windless hot sky, and he at once got up and set about the +preparation of the fire for breakfast. I followed him anxiously at +bathing, but he did not attempt to plunge in, merely dipping his head +and making some remark about the extra coldness of the water. + +“River’s falling at last,” he said, “and I’m glad of it.” + +“The humming has stopped too,” I said. + +He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression. Evidently he +remembered everything except his own attempt at suicide. + +“Everything has stopped,” he said, “because—” + +He hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he had made just +before he fainted was in his mind, and I was determined to know it. + +“Because ‘They’ve found another victim’?” I said, forcing a little +laugh. + +“Exactly,” he answered, “exactly! I feel as positive of it as though—as +though—I feel quite safe again, I mean,” he finished. + +He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in hot patches +on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were motionless. He slowly +rose to feet. + +“Come,” he said; “I think if we look, we shall find it.” + +He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the banks, +poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and little +back-waters, myself always close on his heels. + +“Ah!” he exclaimed presently, “ah!” + +The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid sense of the +horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He +was pointing with his stick at a large black object that lay half in +the water and half on the sand. It appeared to be caught by some +twisted willow roots so that the river could not sweep it away. A few +hours before the spot must have been under water. + +“See,” he said quietly, “the victim that made our escape possible!” + +And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick rested on +the body of a man. He turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, +and the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man had been drowned, +but a few hours before, and his body must have been swept down upon our +island somewhere about the hour of the dawn—_at the very time the fit +had passed._ + +“We must give it a decent burial, you know.” + +“I suppose so,” I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of myself, for +there was something about the appearance of that poor drowned man that +turned me cold. + +The Swede glanced up sharply at me, an undecipherable expression on his +face, and began clambering down the bank. I followed him more +leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away much of the clothing +from the body, so that the neck and part of the chest lay bare. + +Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held up his +hand in warning; but either my foot slipped, or I had gained too much +momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I bumped into him and +sent him forward with a sort of leap to save himself. We tumbled +together on to the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the water. +And, before anything could be done, we had collided a little heavily +against the corpse. + +The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang back as if I had been shot. + +At the moment we touched the body there rose from its surface the loud +sound of humming—the sound of several hummings—which passed with a vast +commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared +upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally +ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some +living yet invisible creatures at work. + +My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him, but before either +of us had time properly to recover from the unexpected shock, we saw +that a movement of the current was turning the corpse round so that it +became released from the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it +had turned completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the +sky. It lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it would +be swept away. + +The Swede started to save it, shouting again something I did not catch +about a “proper burial”—and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the +sand and covered his eyes with his hands. I was beside him in an +instant. + +I saw what he had seen. + +For just as the body swung round to the current the face and the +exposed chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly how the skin +and flesh were indented with small hollows, beautifully formed, and +exactly similar in shape and kind to the sand-funnels that we had found +all over the island. + +“Their mark!” I heard my companion mutter under his breath. “Their +awful mark!” + +And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the river, the +current had done its work, and the body had been swept away into +mid-stream and was already beyond our reach and almost out of sight, +turning over and over on the waves like an otter. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WILLOWS, BY ALGRENON BLACKWOOD *** |