It

was an animal. And the same instant I realised something else too—it

was the animal; and its whole presentment for some unaccountable

reason was unutterably malefic.

A cry I was quite unable to suppress escaped me, and

the creature turned on the instant and stared at me with baleful eyes.

I could have dropped on the spot, for the strength all ran out of my

body with a rush. Something about it touched in me the living terror

that grips and paralyses. If the mind requires but the tenth of a

second to form an impression, I must have stood there stockstill for

several seconds while I seized the ropes for support and stared. Many

and vivid impressions flashed through my mind, but not one of them

resulted in action, because I was in instant dread that the beast any

moment would leap in my direction and be upon me. Instead, however,

after what seemed a vast period, it slowly turned its eyes from my

face, uttered a low whining sound, and came out altogether into the

open.

Then, for the first time, I saw it in its entirety

and noted two things: it was about the size of a large dog, but at the

same time it was utterly unlike any animal that I had ever seen. Also,

that the quality that had impressed me first as being malefic was

really only its singular and original strangeness. Foolish as it may

sound, and impossible as it is for me to adduce proof, I can only say

that the animal seemed to me then to be—not real.

But all this passed through my mind in a flash,

almost subconsciously, and before I had time to check my impressions,

or even properly verify them, I made an involuntary movement, catching

the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and

in that instant the creature turned the corner of Sangree’s tent and

was gone into the darkness.

Then, of course, my senses in some measure returned

to me, and I realised only one thing: it had been inside his tent!

I dashed out, reached the door in half a dozen

strides, and looked in. The Canadian, thank God! lay upon his bed of

branches. His arm was stretched outside, across the blankets, the fist

tightly clenched, and the body had an appearance of unusual rigidity

that was alarming. On his face there was an expression of effort,

almost of painful effort, so far as the uncertain light permitted me to

see, and his sleep seemed to be very profound. He looked, I thought, so

stiff, so unnaturally stiff, and in some indefinable way, too, he

looked smaller—shrunken.

I called to him to wake, but called many times in

vain. Then I decided to shake him, and had already moved forward to do

so vigorously when there came a sound of footsteps padding softly

behind me, and I felt a stream of hot breath burn my neck as I stooped.

I turned sharply. The tent door was darkened and something silently

swept in. I felt a rough and shaggy body push past me, and knew that

the animal had returned. It seemed to leap forward between me and

Sangree—in fact, to leap upon Sangree, for its dark body hid him

momentarily from view, and in that moment my soul turned sick and

coward with a horror that rose from the very dregs and depths of life,

and gripped my existence at its central source.

The creature seemed somehow to melt away into him,

almost as though it belonged to him and were a part of himself, but in

the same instant—that instant of extraordinary confusion and terror in

my mind—it seemed to pass over and behind him, and, in some utterly

unaccountable fashion, it was gone. And the Canadian woke and sat up

with a start.

“Quick! You fool!” I cried, in my excitement, “the

beast has been in your tent, here at your very throat while you sleep

like the dead. Up, man! Get your gun! Only this second it disappeared

over there behind your head. Quick! or Joan–-!”

And somehow the fact that he was there, wide-awake

now, to corroborate me, brought the additional conviction to my own

mind that this was no animal, but some perplexing and dreadful form of

life that drew upon my deeper knowledge, that much reading had perhaps

assented to, but that had never yet come within actual range of my

senses.

He was up in a flash, and out. He was trembling, and

very white. We searched hurriedly, feverishly, but found only the

traces of paw-marks passing from the door of his own tent across the

moss to the women’s. And the sight of the tracks about Mrs. Maloney’s

tent, where Joan now slept, set him in a perfect fury.

“Do you know what it is, Hubbard, this beast?” he

hissed under his breath at me; “it’s a damned wolf, that’s what it

is—a wolf lost among the islands, and starving to death—desperate. So

help me God, I believe it’s that!”

He talked a lot of rubbish in his excitement. He

declared he would sleep by day and sit up every night until he killed

it. Again his rage touched my admiration; but I got him away before he

made enough noise to wake the whole Camp.

“I have a better plan than that,” I said, watching

his face closely. “I don’t think this is anything we can deal with. I’m

going to send for the only man I know who can help.