Alarm stood waiting at our elbows. We shivered.

Then, suddenly, as we looked into each other’s

faces, came the long, unwelcome pause in which this new arrival

established itself in our hearts.

And, without further speech, or attempt at

explanation, Maloney moved off abruptly to mix the porridge for an

early breakfast; Sangree to clean the fish; myself to chop wood and

tend the fire; Joan and her mother to change their wet garments; and,

most significant of all, to prepare her mother’s tent for its future

complement of two.

Each went to his duty, but hurriedly, awkwardly,

silently; and this new arrival, this shape of terror and distress

stalked, viewless, by the side of each.

“If only I could have traced that dog,” I think was

the thought in the minds of all.

But in Camp, where every one realises how important

the individual contribution is to the comfort and well-being of all,

the mind speedily recovers tone and pulls itself together.

During the day, a day of heavy and ceaseless rain,

we kept more or less to our tents, and though there were signs of

mysterious conferences between the three members of the Maloney family,

I think that most of us slept a good deal and stayed alone with his

thoughts. Certainly, I did, because when Maloney came to say that his

wife invited us all to a special “tea” in her tent, he had to shake me

awake before I realised that he was there at all.

And by supper-time we were more or less even-minded

again, and almost jolly. I only noticed that there was an undercurrent

of what is best described as “jumpiness,” and that the merest snapping

of a twig, or plop of a fish in the lagoon, was sufficient to make us

start and look over our shoulders. Pauses were rare in our talk, and

the fire was never for one instant allowed to get low. The wind and

rain had ceased, but the dripping of the branches still kept up an

excellent imitation of a downpour. In particular, Maloney was vigilant

and alert, telling us a series of tales in which the wholesome humorous

element was especially strong. He lingered, too, behind with me after

Sangree had gone to bed, and while I mixed myself a glass of hot

Swedish punch, he did a thing I had never known him do before—he mixed

one for himself, and then asked me to light him over to his tent. We

said nothing on the way, but I felt that he was glad of my

companionship.

I returned alone to the stockade, and for a long

time after that kept the fire blazing, and sat up smoking and thinking.

I hardly knew why; but sleep was far from me for one thing, and for

another, an idea was taking form in my mind that required the comfort

of tobacco and a bright fire for its growth. I lay against a corner of

the stockade seat, listening to the wind whispering and to the

ceaseless drip-drip of the trees. The night, otherwise, was very still,

and the sea quiet as a lake. I remember that I was conscious,

peculiarly conscious, of this host of desolate islands crowding about

us in the darkness, and that we were the one little spot of humanity in

a rather wonderful kind of wilderness.

But this, I think, was the only symptom that came to

warn me of highly strung nerves, and it certainly was not sufficiently

alarming to destroy my peace of mind. One thing, however, did come to

disturb my peace, for just as I finally made ready to go, and had

kicked the embers of the fire into a last effort, I fancied I saw,

peering at me round the farther end of the stockade wall, a dark and

shadowy mass that might have been—that strongly resembled, in

fact—the body of a large animal. Two glowing eyes shone for an instant

in the middle of it. But the next second I saw that it was merely a

projecting mass of moss and lichen in the wall of our stockade, and the

eyes were a couple of wandering sparks from the dying ashes I had

kicked. It was easy enough, too, to imagine I saw an animal moving here

and there between the trees, as I picked my way stealthily to my tent.

Of course, the shadows tricked me.

And though it was after one o’clock, Maloney’s light

was still burning, for I saw his tent shining white among the pines.

It was, however, in the short space between

consciousness and sleep—that time when the body is low and the voices

of the submerged region tell sometimes true—that the idea which had

been all this while maturing reached the point of an actual decision,

and I suddenly realised that I had resolved to send word to Dr.

Silence. For, with a sudden wonder that I had hitherto been so blind,

the unwelcome conviction dawned upon me all at once that some dreadful

thing was lurking about us on this island, and that the safety of at

least one of us was threatened by something monstrous and unclean that

was too horrible to contemplate. And, again remembering those last

words of his as the train moved out of the platform, I understood that

Dr. Silence would hold himself in readiness to come.

“Unless you should send for me sooner,” he had said.

I found myself suddenly wide awake. It is impossible

to say what woke me, but it was no gradual process, seeing that I

jumped from deep sleep to absolute alertness in a single instant. I had

evidently slept for an hour and more, for the night had cleared, stars

crowded the sky, and a pallid half-moon just sinking into the sea threw

a spectral light between the trees.

I went outside to sniff the air, and stood upright.

A curious impression that something was astir in the Camp came over me,

and when I glanced across at Sangree’s tent, some twenty feet away, I

saw that it was moving. He too, then, was awake and restless, for I saw

the canvas sides bulge this way and that as he moved within.

The tent flap pushed forward. He was coming out,

like myself, to sniff the air; and I was not surprised, for its

sweetness after the rain was intoxicating. And he came on all fours,

just as I had done. I saw a head thrust round the edge of the tent.

And then I saw that it was not Sangree at all.