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
of fish, 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.
It happened exactly as described. This was exactly the language used.
I see it written before me in black and white. I see, too, the faces
of all concerned with the sudden ugly signature of alarm where before
had been peace. The terror had stretched out, so to speak, a first
tentative feeler towards us and had touched the hearts of each with a
horrid directness. And from this moment the Camp changed.
Sangree in particular was visibly upset. He could not bear to see the
girl distressed, and to hear her actually cry was almost more than he
could stand. The feeling that he had no right to protect her hurt him
keenly, and I could see that he was itching to do something to help,
and liked him for it. His expression said plainly that he would tear in
a thousand pieces anything that dared to injure a hair of her head.
We lit our pipes and strolled over in silence to the men’s quarters,
and it was his odd Canadian expression “Gee whiz!” that drew my
attention to a further discovery.
“The brute’s been scratching round my tent too,” he cried, as he
pointed to similar marks by the door and I stooped down to examine
them. We both stared in amazement for several minutes without speaking.
“Only I sleep like the dead,” he added, straightening up again, “and so
heard nothing, I suppose.”
We traced the paw-marks from the mouth of his tent in a direct line
across to the girl’s, but nowhere else about the Camp was there a
sign of the strange visitor. The deer, dog, or whatever it was that
had twice favoured us with a visit in the night, had confined its
attentions to these two tents. And, after all, there was really
nothing out of the way about these visits of an unknown animal, for
although our own island was destitute of life, we were in the heart
of a wilderness, and the mainland and larger islands must be swarming
with all kinds of four-footed creatures, and no very prolonged swimming
was necessary to reach us. In any other country it would not have
caused a moment’s interest--interest of the kind we felt, that is.
In our Canadian camps the bears were for ever grunting about among
the provision bags at night, porcupines scratching unceasingly, and
chipmunks scuttling over everything.
“My daughter is overtired, and that’s the truth of it,” explained
Maloney presently when he rejoined us and had examined in turn the
other paw-marks. “She’s been overdoing it lately, and camp-life, you
know, always means a great excitement to her. It’s natural enough. If
we take no notice she’ll be all right.” He paused to borrow my tobacco
pouch and fill his pipe, and the blundering way he filled it and
spilled the precious weed on the ground visibly belied the calm of his
easy language. “You might take her out for a bit of fishing, Hubbard,
like a good chap; she’s hardly up to the long day in the cutter. Show
her some of the other islands in your canoe, perhaps. Eh?”
And by lunch-time the cloud had passed away as suddenly, and as
suspiciously, as it had come.
But in the canoe, on our way home, having till then purposely ignored
the subject uppermost in our minds, she suddenly spoke to me in a way
that again touched the note of sinister alarm--the note that kept on
sounding and sounding until finally John Silence came with his great
vibrating presence and relieved it; yes, and even after he came, too,
for a while.
“I’m ashamed to ask it,” she said abruptly, as she steered me home,
her sleeves rolled up, her hair blowing in the wind, “and ashamed of
my silly tears too, because I really can’t make out what caused them;
but, Mr. Hubbard, I want you to promise me not to go off for your long
expeditions--just yet. I beg it of you.” She was so in earnest that
she forgot the canoe, and the wind caught it sideways and made us roll
dangerously. “I have tried hard not to ask this,” she added, bringing
the canoe round again, “but I simply can’t help myself.”
It was a good deal to ask, and I suppose my hesitation was plain; for
she went on before I could reply, and her beseeching expression and
intensity of manner impressed me very forcibly.
“For another two weeks only----”
“Mr. Sangree leaves in a fortnight,” I said, seeing at once what she
was driving at, but wondering if it was best to encourage her or not.
“If I knew you were to be on the island till then,” she said, her face
alternately pale and blushing, and her voice trembling a little, “I
should feel so much happier.”