VII
A wall of silence wrapped them in, for the snow, though not thick, wassufficient to deaden any noise, and the frost held things pretty tightbesides. No sound but their voices and the soft roar of the flames madeitself heard. Only, from time to time, something soft as the flutter ofa pine moth's wings went past them through the air. No one seemedanxious to go to bed. The hours slipped towards midnight.
"The legend is picturesque enough," observed the doctor after one of thelonger pauses, speaking to break it rather than because he had anythingto say, "for the Wendigo is simply the Call of the Wild personified,which some natures hear to their own destruction."
"That's about it," Hank said presently. "An' there's no misunderstandin'when you hear it. It calls you by name right 'nough."
Another pause followed. Then Dr. Cathcart came back to the forbiddensubject with a rush that made the others jump.
"The allegory _is_ significant," he remarked, looking about him into thedarkness, "for the Voice, they say, resembles all the minor sounds ofthe Bush--wind, falling water, cries of the animals, and so forth. And,once the victim hears _that_--he's off for good, of course! His mostvulnerable points, moreover, are said to be the feet and the eyes; thefeet, you see, for the lust of wandering, and the eyes for the lust ofbeauty. The poor beggar goes at such a dreadful speed that he bleedsbeneath the eyes, and his feet burn."
Dr. Cathcart, as he spoke, continued to peer uneasily into thesurrounding gloom. His voice sank to a hushed tone.
"The Wendigo," he added, "is said to burn his feet--owing to thefriction, apparently caused by its tremendous velocity--till they dropoff, and new ones form exactly like its own."
Simpson listened in horrified amazement; but it was the pallor on Hank'sface that fascinated him most. He would willingly have stopped his earsand closed his eyes, had he dared.
"It don't always keep to the ground neither," came in Hank's slow, heavydrawl, "for it goes so high that he thinks the stars have set him alla-fire. An' it'll take great thumpin' jumps sometimes, an' run along thetops of the trees, carrying its partner with it, an' then droppin' himjest as a fish hawk'll drop a pickerel to kill it before eatin'. An' itsfood, of all the muck in the whole Bush is--moss!" And he laughed ashort, unnatural laugh. "It's a moss-eater, is the Wendigo," he added,looking up excitedly into the faces of his companions. "Moss-eater," herepeated, with a string of the most outlandish oaths he could invent.
But Simpson now understood the true purpose of all this talk. Whatthese two men, each strong and "experienced" in his own way, dreadedmore than anything else was--silence. They were talking against time.They were also talking against darkness, against the invasion of panic,against the admission reflection might bring that they were in anenemy's country--against anything, in fact, rather than allow theirinmost thoughts to assume control. He himself, already initiated by theawful vigil with terror, was beyond both of them in this respect. He hadreached the stage where he was immune. But these two, the scoffing,analytical doctor, and the honest, dogged backwoodsman, each sattrembling in the depths of his being.
Thus the hours passed; and thus, with lowered voices and a kind of tautinner resistance of spirit, this little group of humanity sat in thejaws of the wilderness and talked foolishly of the terrible and hauntinglegend. It was an unequal contest, all things considered, for thewilderness had already the advantage of first attack--and of a hostage.The fate of their comrade hung over them with a steadily increasingweight of oppression that finally became insupportable.
It was Hank, after a pause longer than the preceding ones that no oneseemed able to break, who first let loose all this pent-up emotion invery unexpected fashion, by springing suddenly to his feet and lettingout the most ear-shattering yell imaginable into the night. He could notcontain himself any longer, it seemed. To make it carry even beyond anordinary cry he interrupted its rhythm by shaking the palm of his handbefore his mouth.
"That's for Defago," he said, looking down at the other two with aqueer, defiant laugh, "for it's my belief"--the sandwiched oaths may beomitted--"that my ole partner's not far from us at this very minute."
There was a vehemence and recklessness about his performance that madeSimpson, too, start to his feet in amazement, and betrayed even thedoctor into letting the pipe slip from between his lips. Hank's face wasghastly, but Cathcart's showed a sudden weakness--a loosening of all hisfaculties, as it were. Then a momentary anger blazed into his eyes, andhe too, though with deliberation born of habitual self-control, got uponhis feet and faced the excited guide. For this was unpermissible,foolish, dangerous, and he meant to stop it in the bud.
What might have happened in the next minute or two one may speculateabout, yet never definitely know, for in the instant of profound silencethat followed Hank's roaring voice, and as though in answer to it,something went past through the darkness of the sky overhead at terrificspeed--something of necessity very large, for it displaced much air,while down between the trees there fell a faint and windy cry of a humanvoice, calling in tones of indescribable anguish and appeal--
"Oh, oh! This fiery height! Oh, oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet offire!"
White to the very edge of his shirt, Hank looked stupidly about him likea child. Dr. Cathcart uttered some kind of unintelligible cry, turningas he did so with an instinctive movement of blind terror towards theprotection of the tent, then halting in the act as though frozen.Simpson, alone of the three, retained his presence of mind a little. Hisown horror was too deep to allow of any immediate reaction. He had heardthat cry before.
Turning to his stricken companions, he said almost calmly--
"That's exactly the cry I heard--the very words he used!"
Then, lifting his face to the sky, he cried aloud, "Defago, Defago! Comedown here to us! Come down--!"
And before there was time for anybody to take definite action one way oranother, there came the sound of something dropping heavily between thetrees, striking the branches on the way down, and landing with adreadful thud upon the frozen earth below. The crash and thunder of itwas really terrific.
"That's him, s'help me the good Gawd!" came from Hank in a whisperingcry half choked, his hand going automatically toward the hunting knifein his belt. "And he's coming! He's coming!" he added, with anirrational laugh of horror, as the sounds of heavy footsteps crunchingover the snow became distinctly audible, approaching through theblackness towards the circle of light.
And while the steps, with their stumbling motion, moved nearer andnearer upon them, the three men stood round that fire, motionless anddumb. Dr. Cathcart had the appearance of a man suddenly withered; evenhis eyes did not move. Hank, suffering shockingly, seemed on the vergeagain of violent action; yet did nothing. He, too, was hewn of stone.Like stricken children they seemed. The picture was hideous. And,meanwhile, their owner still invisible, the footsteps came closer,crunching the frozen snow. It was endless--too prolonged to be quitereal--this measured and pitiless approach. It was accursed.