IV

Although nothing John Silence did ever took me, properly speaking, by

surprise, it was certainly unexpected to find a letter from Stockholm

waiting for me. "I have finished my Hungary business," he wrote, "and am

here for ten days. Do not hesitate to send if you need me. If you

telephone any morning from Waxholm I can catch the afternoon steamer."

My years of intercourse with him were full of "coincidences" of this

description, and although he never sought to explain them by claiming

any magical system of communication with my mind, I have never doubted

that there actually existed some secret telepathic method by which he

knew my circumstances and gauged the degree of my need. And that this

power was independent of time in the sense that it saw into the future,

always seemed to me equally apparent.

Sangree was as much relieved as I was, and within an hour of sunset that

very evening we met him on the arrival of the little coasting steamer,

and carried him off in the dinghy to the camp we had prepared on a

neighbouring island, meaning to start for home early next morning.

"Now," he said, when supper was over and we were smoking round the fire,

"let me hear your story." He glanced from one to the other, smiling.

"You tell it, Mr. Hubbard," Sangree interrupted abruptly, and went off a

little way to wash the dishes, yet not so far as to be out of earshot.

And while he splashed with the hot water, and scraped the tin plates

with sand and moss, my voice, unbroken by a single question from Dr.

Silence, ran on for the next half-hour with the best account I could

give of what had happened.

My listener lay on the other side of the fire, his face half hidden by a

big sombrero; sometimes he glanced up questioningly when a point needed

elaboration, but he uttered no single word till I had reached the end,

and his manner all through the recital was grave and attentive.

Overhead, the wash of the wind in the pine branches filled in the

pauses; the darkness settled down over the sea, and the stars came out

in thousands, and by the time I finished the moon had risen to flood the

scene with silver. Yet, by his face and eyes, I knew quite well that the

doctor was listening to something he had expected to hear, even if he

had not actually anticipated all the details.

"You did well to send for me," he said very low, with a significant

glance at me when I finished; "very well,"--and for one swift second his

eye took in Sangree,--"for what we have to deal with here is nothing

more than a werewolf--rare enough, I am glad to say, but often very sad,

and sometimes very terrible."

I jumped as though I had been shot, but the next second was heartily

ashamed of my want of control; for this brief remark, confirming as it

did my own worst suspicions, did more to convince me of the gravity of

the adventure than any number of questions or explanations. It seemed to

draw close the circle about us, shutting a door somewhere that locked us

in with the animal and the horror, and turning the key. Whatever it was

had now to be faced and dealt with.

"No one has been actually injured so far?" he asked aloud, but in a

matter-of-fact tone that lent reality to grim possibilities.

"Good heavens, no!" cried the Canadian, throwing down his dishcloths

and coming forward into the circle of firelight. "Surely there can be no

question of this poor starved beast injuring anybody, can there?"

His hair straggled untidily over his forehead, and there was a gleam in

his eyes that was not all reflection from the fire. His words made me

turn sharply. We all laughed a little short, forced laugh.

"I trust not, indeed," Dr. Silence said quietly. "But what makes you

think the creature is starved?" He asked the question with his eyes

straight on the other's face. The prompt question explained to me why I

had started, and I waited with just a tremor of excitement for the

reply.

Sangree hesitated a moment, as though the question took him by surprise.

But he met the doctor's gaze unflinchingly across the fire, and with

complete honesty.

"Really," he faltered, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "I can

hardly tell you. The phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. I have

felt from the beginning that it was in pain and--starved, though why I

felt this never occurred to me till you asked."

"You really know very little about it, then?" said the other, with a

sudden gentleness in his voice.

"No more than that," Sangree replied, looking at him with a puzzled

expression that was unmistakably genuine. "In fact, nothing at all,

really," he added, by way of further explanation.

"I am glad of that," I heard the doctor murmur under his breath, but so

low that I only just caught the words, and Sangree missed them

altogether, as evidently he was meant to do.

"And now," he cried, getting on his feet and shaking himself with a

characteristic gesture, as though to shake out the horror and the

mystery, "let us leave the problem till to-morrow and enjoy this wind

and sea and stars. I've been living lately in the atmosphere of many

people, and feel that I want to wash and be clean. I propose a swim and

then bed. Who'll second me?" And two minutes later we were all diving

from the boat into cool, deep water, that reflected a thousand moons as

the waves broke away from us in countless ripples.

We slept in blankets under the open sky, Sangree and I taking the

outside places, and were up before sunrise to catch the dawn wind.

Helped by this early start we were half-way home by noon, and then the

wind shifted to a few points behind us so that we fairly ran. In and out

among a thousand islands, down narrow channels where we lost the wind,

out into open spaces where we had to take in a reef, racing along under

a hot and cloudless sky, we flew through the very heart of the

bewildering and lonely scenery.

"A real wilderness," cried Dr. Silence from his seat in the bows where

he held the jib sheet. His hat was off, his hair tumbled in the wind,

and his lean brown face gave him the touch of an Oriental. Presently he

changed places with Sangree, and came down to talk with me by the

tiller.

"A wonderful region, all this world of islands," he said, waving his

hand to the scenery rushing past us, "but doesn't it strike you there's

something lacking?"

"It's--hard," I answered, after a moment's reflection. "It has a

superficial, glittering prettiness, without--" I hesitated to find the

word I wanted.

John Silence nodded his head with approval.

"Exactly," he said. "The picturesqueness of stage scenery that is not

real, not alive. It's like a landscape by a clever painter, yet without

true imagination. Soulless--that's the word you wanted."

"Something like that," I answered, watching the gusts of wind on the

sails. "Not dead so much, as without soul. That's it."

"Of course," he went on, in a voice calculated, it seemed to me, not to

reach our companion in the bows, "to live long in a place like

this--long and alone--might bring about a strange result in some men."

I suddenly realised he was talking with a purpose and pricked up my

ears.

"There's no life here. These islands are mere dead rocks pushed up from

below the sea--not living land; and there's nothing really alive on

them. Even the sea, this tideless, brackish sea, neither salt water nor

fresh, is dead. It's all a pretty image of life without the real heart

and soul of life. To a man with too strong desires who came here and

lived close to nature, strange things might happen."

"Let her out a bit," I shouted to Sangree, who was coming aft. "The

wind's gusty and we've got hardly any ballast."