The others—singing Maloney, the bustling

Bo’sun’s Mate, and Joan, that fascinating half-breed of undine and

salamander—all showed the effects of a life so close to nature; but in

their case the change was perfectly natural and what was to be

expected, whereas with Peter Sangree, the Canadian, it was something

unusual and unexpected.

It is impossible to explain how he managed gradually

to convey to my mind the impression that something in him had turned

savage, yet this, more or less, is the impression that he did convey.

It was not that he seemed really less civilised, or that his character

had undergone any definite alteration, but rather that something in

him, hitherto dormant, had awakened to life. Some quality, latent till

now—so far, at least, as we were concerned, who, after all, knew him

but slightly—had stirred into activity and risen to the surface of his

being.

And while, for the moment, this seemed as far as I

could get, it was but natural that my mind should continue the

intuitive process and acknowledge that John Silence, owing to his

peculiar faculties, and the girl, owing to her singularly receptive

temperament, might each in a different way have divined this latent

quality in his soul, and feared its manifestation later.

On looking back to this painful adventure, too, it

now seems equally natural that the same process, carried to its logical

conclusion, should have wakened some deep instinct in me that, wholly

without direction from my will, set itself sharply and persistently

upon the watch from that very moment. Thenceforward the personality of

Sangree was never far from my thoughts, and I was for ever analysing

and searching for the explanation that took so long in coming.

“I declare, Hubbard, you’re tanned like an

aboriginal, and you look like one, too,” laughed Maloney.

“And I can return the compliment,” was my reply, as

we all gathered round a brew of tea to exchange news and compare notes.

And later, at supper, it amused me to observe that

the distinguished tutor, once clergyman, did not eat his food quite as

“nicely” as he did at home—he devoured it; that Mrs. Maloney ate more,

and, to say the least, with less delay, than was her custom in the

select atmosphere of I her English dining-room; and that while Joan

attacked her tin plateful with genuine avidity, Sangree, the Canadian,

bit and gnawed at his, laughing and talking and complimenting the cook

all the while, and making me think with secret amusement of a starved

animal at its first meal. While, from their remarks about myself, I

judged that I had .changed and grown wild as much as the rest of them.

In this and in a hundred other little ways the

change showed, ways difficult to define in detail, but all proving—not

the coarsening effect of leading the primitive life, but, let us say,

the more direct and unvarnished methods that became prevalent. For all

day long we were in the bath of the elements—wind, water, sun—and

just as the body became insensible to cold and shed unnecessary

clothing, the mind grew straightforward and shed many of the disguises

required by the conventions of civilisation.

And in each, according to temperament and character,

there stirred the life-instincts that were natural, untamed, and, in a

sense—savage.

III

So it came about that I stayed with our island

party, putting off my second exploring trip from day to day, and I

think that this far-fetched instinct to watch Sangree was really the

cause of my postponement.

For another ten days the life of the Camp pursued

its even and delightful way, blessed by perfect summer weather, a good

harvest offish, fine winds for sailing, and calm, starry nights.

Maloney’s selfish prayer had been favourably received. Nothing came to

disturb or perplex. There was not even the prowling of night animals to

vex the rest of Mrs. Maloney; for in previous camps it had often been

her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching

against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early

morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent.

But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I think

two toads and a small and harmless snake were the only living creatures

that had been discovered during the whole of the first fortnight. And

these two toads in all probability were not two toads, but one toad.

Then, suddenly, came the terror that changed the

whole aspect of the place—the devastating terror.

It came, at first, gently, but from the very start

it made me realise the unpleasant loneliness of our situation, our

remote isolation in this wilderness of sea and rock, and how the

islands in this tideless Baltic ocean lay about us like the advance

guard of a vast besieging army. Its entry, as I say, was gentle,

hardly noticeable, in fact, to most of us: singularly undramatic it

certainly was. But, then, in actual life this is often the way the

dreadful climaxes move upon us, leaving the heart undisturbed almost to

the last minute, and then overwhelming it with a sudden rush of horror.

For it was the custom at breakfast to listen patiently while each in

turn related the trivial adventures of the night—how they slept,

whether the wind shook their tent, whether the spider on the ridge pole

had moved, whether they had heard the toad, and so forth— and on this

particular morning Joan, in the middle of a little pause, made a truly

novel announcement:

“In the night I heard the howling of a dog,” she

said, and then flushed up to the roots of her hair when we burst out

laughing. For the idea of there being a dog on this forsaken island

that was only able to support a snake and two toads was distinctly

ludicrous, and I remember Maloney, half-way through his burnt porridge,

capping the announcement by declaring that he had heard a “Baltic

turtle” in the lagoon, and his wife’s expression of frantic alarm

before the laughter undeceived her.

But the next morning Joan repeated the story with

additional and convincing detail.

“Sounds of whining and growling woke me,” she said,

“and I distinctly heard sniffing under my tent, and the scratching of

paws.”

“Oh, Timothy! Can it be a porcupine?” exclaimed the

Bo’sun’s Mate with distress, forgetting that Sweden was not Canada.

But the girl’s voice had sounded to me in quite

another key, and looking up I saw that her father and Sangree were

staring at her hard. They, too, understood that she was in earnest, and

had been struck by the serious note in her voice.

“Rubbish, Joan! You are always dreaming something or

other wild,” her father said a little impatiently.

“There’s not an animal of any size on the whole

island,” added Sangree with a puzzled expression. He never took his

eyes from her face.

“But there’s nothing to prevent one swimming over,”

I put in briskly, for somehow a sense of uneasiness that was not

pleasant had woven itself into the talk and pauses. “A deer, for

instance, might easily land in the night and take a look round–-“

“Or a bear!” gasped the Bo’sun’s Mate, with a look

so portentous that we all welcomed the laugh.

But Joan did not laugh. Instead, she sprang up and

called to us to follow.

“There,” she said, pointing to the ground by her

tent on the side farthest from her mother’s; “there are the marks close

to my head. You can see for yourselves.”

We saw plainly. The moss and lichen—for earth there

was hardly any—had been scratched up by paws. An animal about the size

of a large dog it must have been, to judge by the marks. We stood and

stared in a row.

“Close to my head,” repeated the girl, looking round

at us. Her face, I noticed, was very pale, and her lip seemed to quiver

for an instant. Then she gave a sudden gulp—and burst into a flood of

tears.

The whole thing had come about in the brief space of

a few minutes, and with a curious sense of inevitableness, moreover, as

though it had all been carefully planned from all time and nothing

could have stopped it. It had all been rehearsed before—had actually

happened before, as the strange feeling sometimes has it; it seemed

like the opening movement in some ominous drama, and that I knew

exactly what would happen next. Something of great moment was impending.

For this sinister sensation of coming disaster made

itself felt from the very beginning, and an atmosphere of gloom and

dismay pervaded the entire Camp from that moment forward.

I drew Sangree to one side and moved away, while

Maloney took the distressed girl into her tent, and his wife followed

them, energetic and greatly flustered.

For thus, in undramatic fashion, it was that the

terror I have spoken of first attempted the invasion of our Camp, and,

trivial and unimportant though it seemed, every little detail of this

opening scene is photographed upon my mind with merciless accuracy and

precision.