the picture of that canoe, gliding so dimly and swiftly across the
narrow track of light on the black waters, silhouetted itself against
the background of my mind with singular vividness. It kept coming
between my eyes and the printed page. The more I thought about it the
more surprised I became. It was of larger build than any I had seen
during the past summer months, and was more like the old Indian war
canoes with the high curving bows and stern and wide beam. The more I
tried to read, the less success attended my efforts; and finally I
closed my books and went out on the verandah to walk up and down a bit,
and shake the chilliness out of my bones.
The night was perfectly still, and as dark as imaginable. I stumbled
down the path to the little landing wharf, where the water made the very
faintest of gurgling under the timbers. The sound of a big tree falling
in the mainland forest, far across the lake, stirred echoes in the heavy
air, like the first guns of a distant night attack. No other sound
disturbed the stillness that reigned supreme.
As I stood upon the wharf in the broad splash of light that followed me
from the sitting-room windows, I saw another canoe cross the pathway of
uncertain light upon the water, and disappear at once into the
impenetrable gloom that lay beyond. This time I saw more distinctly than
before. It was like the former canoe, a big birch-bark, with
high-crested bows and stern and broad beam. It was paddled by two
Indians, of whom the one in the stern--the steerer--appeared to be a
very large man. I could see this very plainly; and though the second
canoe was much nearer the island than the first, I judged that they were
both on their way home to the Government Reservation, which was situated
some fifteen miles away upon the mainland.
I was wondering in my mind what could possibly bring any Indians down to
this part of the lake at such an hour of the night, when a third canoe,
of precisely similar build, and also occupied by two Indians, passed
silently round the end of the wharf. This time the canoe was very much
nearer shore, and it suddenly flashed into my mind that the three canoes
were in reality one and the same, and that only one canoe was circling
the island!
This was by no means a pleasant reflection, because, if it were the
correct solution of the unusual appearance of the three canoes in this
lonely part of the lake at so late an hour, the purpose of the two men
could only reasonably be considered to be in some way connected with
myself. I had never known of the Indians attempting any violence upon
the settlers who shared the wild, inhospitable country with them; at the
same time, it was not beyond the region of possibility to suppose. . . .
But then I did not care even to think of such hideous possibilities, and
my imagination immediately sought relief in all manner of other
solutions to the problem, which indeed came readily enough to my mind,
but did not succeed in recommending themselves to my reason.
Meanwhile, by a sort of instinct, I stepped back out of the bright light
in which I had hitherto been standing, and waited in the deep shadow of
a rock to see if the canoe would again make its appearance. Here I could
see, without being seen, and the precaution seemed a wise one.
After less than five minutes the canoe, as I had anticipated, made its
fourth appearance. This time it was not twenty yards from the wharf, and
I saw that the Indians meant to land. I recognised the two men as those
who had passed before, and the steerer was certainly an immense fellow.
It was unquestionably the same canoe. There could be no longer any doubt
that for some purpose of their own the men had been going round and
round the island for some time, waiting for an opportunity to land. I
strained my eyes to follow them in the darkness, but the night had
completely swallowed them up, and not even the faintest swish of the
paddles reached my ears as the Indians plied their long and powerful
strokes. The canoe would be round again in a few moments, and this time
it was possible that the men might land. It was well to be prepared. I
knew nothing of their intentions, and two to one (when the two are big
Indians!) late at night on a lonely island was not exactly my idea of
pleasant intercourse.
In a corner of the sitting-room, leaning up against the back wall, stood
my Marlin rifle, with ten cartridges in the magazine and one lying
snugly in the greased breech. There was just time to get up to the house
and take up a position of defence in that corner. Without an instant's
hesitation I ran up to the verandah, carefully picking my way among the
trees, so as to avoid being seen in the light. Entering the room, I shut
the door leading to the verandah, and as quickly as possible turned out
every one of the six lamps. To be in a room so brilliantly lighted,
where my every movement could be observed from outside, while I could
see nothing but impenetrable darkness at every window, was by all laws
of warfare an unnecessary concession to the enemy. And this enemy, if
enemy it was to be, was far too wily and dangerous to be granted any
such advantages.
I stood in the corner of the room with my back against the wall, and my
hand on the cold rifle-barrel. The table, covered with my books, lay
between me and the door, but for the first few minutes after the lights
were out the darkness was so intense that nothing could be discerned at
all. Then, very gradually, the outline of the room became visible, and
the framework of the windows began to shape itself dimly before my eyes.
After a few minutes the door (its upper half of glass), and the two
windows that looked out upon the front verandah, became specially
distinct; and I was glad that this was so, because if the Indians came
up to the house I should be able to see their approach, and gather
something of their plans. Nor was I mistaken, for there presently came
to my ears the peculiar hollow sound of a canoe landing and being
carefully dragged up over the rocks. The paddles I distinctly heard
being placed underneath, and the silence that ensued thereupon I rightly
interpreted to mean that the Indians were stealthily approaching the
house. . . .
While it would be absurd to claim that I was not alarmed--even
frightened--at the gravity of the situation and its possible outcome, I
speak the whole truth when I say that I was not overwhelmingly afraid
for myself. I was conscious that even at this stage of the night I was
passing into a psychical condition in which my sensations seemed no
longer normal. Physical fear at no time entered into the nature of my
feelings; and though I kept my hand upon my rifle the greater part of
the night, I was all the time conscious that its assistance could be of
little avail against the terrors that I had to face. More than once I
seemed to feel most curiously that I was in no real sense a part of the
proceedings, nor actually involved in them, but that I was playing the
part of a spectator--a spectator, moreover, on a psychic rather than on
a material plane. Many of my sensations that night were too vague for
definite description and analysis, but the main feeling that will stay
with me to the end of my days is the awful horror of it all, and the
miserable sensation that if the strain had lasted a little longer than
was actually the case my mind must inevitably have given way.
Meanwhile I stood still in my corner, and waited patiently for what was
to come. The house was as still as the grave, but the inarticulate
voices of the night sang in my ears, and I seemed to hear the blood
running in my veins and dancing in my pulses.
If the Indians came to the back of the house, they would find the
kitchen door and window securely fastened. They could not get in there
without making considerable noise, which I was bound to hear. The only
mode of getting in was by means of the door that faced me, and I kept my
eyes glued on that door without taking them off for the smallest
fraction of a second.
My sight adapted itself every minute better to the darkness. I saw the
table that nearly filled the room, and left only a narrow passage on
each side. I could also make out the straight backs of the wooden chairs
pressed up against it, and could even distinguish my papers and inkstand
lying on the white oilcloth covering. I thought of the gay faces that
had gathered round that table during the summer, and I longed for the
sunlight as I had never longed for it before.
Less than three feet to my left the passage-way led to the kitchen, and
the stairs leading to the bedrooms above commenced in this passage-way,
but almost in the sitting-room itself. Through the windows I could see
the dim motionless outlines of the trees: not a leaf stirred, not a
branch moved.
A few moments of this awful silence, and then I was aware of a soft
tread on the boards of the verandah, so stealthy that it seemed an
impression directly on my brain rather than upon the nerves of hearing.
Immediately afterwards a black figure darkened the glass door, and I
perceived that a face was pressed against the upper panes. A shiver ran
down my back, and my hair was conscious of a tendency to rise and stand
at right angles to my head.
It was the figure of an Indian, broad-shouldered and immense; indeed,
the largest figure of a man I have ever seen outside of a circus hall.
By some power of light that seemed to generate itself in the brain, I
saw the strong dark face with the aquiline nose and high cheek-bones
flattened against the glass. The direction of the gaze I could not
determine; but faint gleams of light as the big eyes rolled round and
showed their whites, told me plainly that no corner of the room escaped
their searching.
For what seemed fully five minutes the dark figure stood there, with the
huge shoulders bent forward so as to bring the head down to the level of
the glass; while behind him, though not nearly so large, the shadowy
form of the other Indian swayed to and fro like a bent tree. While I
waited in an agony of suspense and agitation for their next movement
little currents of icy sensation ran up and down my spine and my heart
seemed alternately to stop beating and then start off again with
terrifying rapidity. They must have heard its thumping and the singing
of the blood in my head! Moreover, I was conscious, as I felt a cold
stream of perspiration trickle down my face, of a desire to scream, to
shout, to bang the walls like a child, to make a noise, or do anything
that would relieve the suspense and bring things to a speedy climax.
It was probably this inclination that led me to another discovery, for
when I tried to bring my rifle from behind my back to raise it and have
it pointed at the door ready to fire, I found that I was powerless to
move. The muscles, paralysed by this strange fear, refused to obey the
will. Here indeed was a terrifying complication!
* * * * *
There was a faint sound of rattling at the brass knob, and the door was
pushed open a couple of inches. A pause of a few seconds, and it was
pushed open still further. Without a sound of footsteps that was
appreciable to my ears, the two figures glided into the room, and the
man behind gently closed the door after him.
They were alone with me between the four walls. Could they see me
standing there, so still and straight in my corner? Had they, perhaps,
already seen me? My blood surged and sang like the roll of drums in an
orchestra; and though I did my best to suppress my breathing, it sounded
like the rushing of wind through a pneumatic tube.
My suspense as to the next move was soon at an end--only, however, to
give place to a new and keener alarm. The men had hitherto exchanged no
words and no signs, but there were general indications of a movement
across the room, and whichever way they went they would have to pass
round the table. If they came my way they would have to pass within six
inches of my person. While I was considering this very disagreeable
possibility, I perceived that the smaller Indian (smaller by comparison)
suddenly raised his arm and pointed to the ceiling. The other fellow
raised his head and followed the direction of his companion's arm. I
began to understand at last. They were going upstairs, and the room
directly overhead to which they pointed had been until this night my
bedroom. It was the room in which I had experienced that very morning so
strange a sensation of fear, and but for which I should then have been
lying asleep in the narrow bed against the window.
The Indians then began to move silently around the room; they were going
upstairs, and they were coming round my side of the table. So stealthy
were their movements that, but for the abnormally sensitive state of the
nerves, I should never have heard them. As it was, their cat-like tread
was distinctly audible. Like two monstrous black cats they came round
the table toward me, and for the first time I perceived that the smaller
of the two dragged something along the floor behind him. As it trailed
along over the floor with a soft, sweeping sound, I somehow got the
impression that it was a large dead thing with outstretched wings, or a
large, spreading cedar branch. Whatever it was, I was unable to see it
even in outline, and I was too terrified, even had I possessed the power
over my muscles, to move my neck forward in the effort to determine its
nature.
Nearer and nearer they came. The leader rested a giant hand upon the
table as he moved. My lips were glued together, and the air seemed to
burn in my nostrils. I tried to close my eyes, so that I might not see
as they passed me; but my eyelids had stiffened, and refused to obey.
Would they never get by me? Sensation seemed also to have left my legs,
and it was as if I were standing on mere supports of wood or stone.
Worse still, I was conscious that I was losing the power of balance, the
power to stand upright, or even to lean backwards against the wall. Some
force was drawing me forward, and a dizzy terror seized me that I should
lose my balance, and topple forward against the Indians just as they
were in the act of passing me.
Even moments drawn out into hours must come to an end some time, and
almost before I knew it the figures had passed me and had their feet
upon the lower step of the stairs leading to the upper bedrooms. There
could not have been six inches between us, and yet I was conscious only
of a current of cold air that followed them. They had not touched me,
and I was convinced that they had not seen me. Even the trailing thing
on the floor behind them had not touched my feet, as I had dreaded it
would, and on such an occasion as this I was grateful even for the
smallest mercies.
The absence of the Indians from my immediate neighbourhood brought
little sense of relief. I stood shivering and shuddering in my corner,
and, beyond being able to breathe more freely, I felt no whit less
uncomfortable. Also, I was aware that a certain light, which, without
apparent source or rays, had enabled me to follow their every gesture
and movement, had gone out of the room with their departure. An
unnatural darkness now filled the room, and pervaded its every corner so
that I could barely make out the positions of the windows and the glass
doors.
As I said before, my condition was evidently an abnormal one. The
capacity for feeling surprise seemed, as in dreams, to be wholly absent.
My senses recorded with unusual accuracy every smallest occurrence, but
I was able to draw only the simplest deductions.
The Indians soon reached the top of the stairs, and there they halted
for a moment. I had not the faintest clue as to their next movement.
They appeared to hesitate. They were listening attentively. Then I heard
one of them, who by the weight of his soft tread must have been the
giant, cross the narrow corridor and enter the room directly
overhead--my own little bedroom. But for the insistence of that
unaccountable dread I had experienced there in the morning, I should at
that very moment have been lying in the bed with the big Indian in the
room standing beside me.
For the space of a hundred seconds there was silence, such as might
have existed before the birth of sound. It was followed by a long
quivering shriek of terror, which rang out into the night, and ended in
a short gulp before it had run its full course. At the same moment the
other Indian left his place at the head of the stairs, and joined his
companion in the bedroom. I heard the "thing" trailing behind him along
the floor. A thud followed, as of something heavy falling, and then all
became as still and silent as before.
It was at this point that the atmosphere, surcharged all day with the
electricity of a fierce storm, found relief in a dancing flash of
brilliant lightning simultaneously with a crash of loudest thunder. For
five seconds every article in the room was visible to me with amazing
distinctness, and through the windows I saw the tree trunks standing in
solemn rows. The thunder pealed and echoed across the lake and among the
distant islands, and the flood-gates of heaven then opened and let out
their rain in streaming torrents.
The drops fell with a swift rushing sound upon the still waters of the
lake, which leaped up to meet them, and pattered with the rattle of shot
on the leaves of the maples and the roof of the cottage. A moment later,
and another flash, even more brilliant and of longer duration than the
first, lit up the sky from zenith to horizon, and bathed the room
momentarily in dazzling whiteness. I could see the rain glistening on
the leaves and branches outside. The wind rose suddenly, and in less
than a minute the storm that had been gathering all day burst forth in
its full fury.
Above all the noisy voices of the elements, the slightest sounds in the
room overhead made themselves heard, and in the few seconds of deep
silence that followed the shriek of terror and pain I was aware that the
movements had commenced again. The men were leaving the room and
approaching the top of the stairs. A short pause, and they began to
descend. Behind them, tumbling from step to step, I could hear that
trailing "thing" being dragged along. It had become ponderous!
I awaited their approach with a degree of calmness, almost of apathy,
which was only explicable on the ground that after a certain point
Nature applies her own anæsthetic, and a merciful condition of numbness
supervenes. On they came, step by step, nearer and nearer, with the
shuffling sound of the burden behind growing louder as they approached.
They were already half-way down the stairs when I was galvanised afresh
into a condition of terror by the consideration of a new and horrible
possibility. It was the reflection that if another vivid flash of
lightning were to come when the shadowy procession was in the room,
perhaps when it was actually passing in front of me, I should see
everything in detail, and worse, be seen myself! I could only hold my
breath and wait--wait while the minutes lengthened into hours, and the
procession made its slow progress round the room.
The Indians had reached the foot of the staircase. The form of the huge
leader loomed in the doorway of the passage, and the burden with an
ominous thud had dropped from the last step to the floor. There was a
moment's pause while I saw the Indian turn and stoop to assist his
companion. Then the procession moved forward again, entered the room
close on my left, and began to move slowly round my side of the table.
The leader was already beyond me, and his companion, dragging on the
floor behind him the burden, whose confused outline I could dimly make
out, was exactly in front of me, when the cavalcade came to a dead halt.
At the same moment, with the strange suddenness of thunderstorms, the
splash of the rain ceased altogether, and the wind died away into utter
silence.
For the space of five seconds my heart seemed to stop beating, and then
the worst came. A double flash of lightning lit up the room and its
contents with merciless vividness.
The huge Indian leader stood a few feet past me on my right. One leg was
stretched forward in the act of taking a step. His immense shoulders
were turned toward his companion, and in all their magnificent
fierceness I saw the outline of his features. His gaze was directed upon
the burden his companion was dragging along the floor; but his profile,
with the big aquiline nose, high cheek-bone, straight black hair and
bold chin, burnt itself in that brief instant into my brain, never again
to fade.
Dwarfish, compared with this gigantic figure, appeared the proportions
of the other Indian, who, within twelve inches of my face, was stooping
over the thing he was dragging in a position that lent to his person the
additional horror of deformity. And the burden, lying upon a sweeping
cedar branch which he held and dragged by a long stem, was the body of a
white man. The scalp had been neatly lifted, and blood lay in a broad
smear upon the cheeks and forehead.
Then, for the first time that night, the terror that had paralysed my
muscles and my will lifted its unholy spell from my soul. With a loud
cry I stretched out my arms to seize the big Indian by the throat, and,
grasping only air, tumbled forward unconscious upon the ground.
I had recognised the body, and _the face was my own_! . . .
It was bright daylight when a man's voice recalled me to consciousness.
I was lying where I had fallen, and the farmer was standing in the room
with the loaves of bread in his hands. The horror of the night was still
in my heart, and as the bluff settler helped me to my feet and picked up
the rifle which had fallen with me, with many questions and expressions
of condolence, I imagine my brief replies were neither self-explanatory
nor even intelligible.
That day, after a thorough and fruitless search of the house, I left the
island, and went over to spend my last ten days with the farmer; and
when the time came for me to leave, the necessary reading had been
accomplished, and my nerves had completely recovered their balance.
On the day of my departure the farmer started early in his big boat with
my belongings to row to the point, twelve miles distant, where a little
steamer ran twice a week for the accommodation of hunters. Late in the
afternoon I went off in another direction in my canoe, wishing to see
the island once again, where I had been the victim of so strange an
experience.
In due course I arrived there, and made a tour of the island. I also
made a search of the little house, and it was not without a curious
sensation in my heart that I entered the little upstairs bedroom. There
seemed nothing unusual.
Just after I re-embarked, I saw a canoe gliding ahead of me around the
curve of the island. A canoe was an unusual sight at this time of the
year, and this one seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Altering my
course a little, I watched it disappear around the next projecting point
of rock. It had high curving bows, and there were two Indians in it. I
lingered with some excitement, to see if it would appear again round the
other side of the island; and in less than five minutes it came into
view. There were less than two hundred yards between us, and the
Indians, sitting on their haunches, were paddling swiftly in my
direction.
I never paddled faster in my life than I did in those next few minutes.
When I turned to look again, the Indians had altered their course, and
were again circling the island.
The sun was sinking behind the forests on the mainland, and the
crimson-coloured clouds of sunset were reflected in the waters of the
lake, when I looked round for the last time, and saw the big bark canoe
and its two dusky occupants still going round the island. Then the
shadows deepened rapidly; the lake grew black, and the night wind blew
its first breath in my face as I turned a corner, and a projecting bluff
of rock hid from my view both island and canoe.
A CASE OF EAVESDROPPING
Jim Shorthouse was the sort of fellow who always made a mess of things.
Everything with which his hands or mind came into contact issued from
such contact in an unqualified and irremediable state of mess. His
college days were a mess: he was twice rusticated. His schooldays were a
mess: he went to half a dozen, each passing him on to the next with a
worse character and in a more developed state of mess. His early boyhood
was the sort of mess that copy-books and dictionaries spell with a big
"M," and his babyhood--ugh! was the embodiment of howling, yowling,
screaming mess.
At the age of forty, however, there came a change in his troubled life,
when he met a girl with half a million in her own right, who consented
to marry him, and who very soon succeeded in reducing his most messy
existence into a state of comparative order and system.