The Willows

sides of the tent and weighing down upon it from above. Was itthe body of the wind? Was this the pattering rain, the dripping of theleaves? The spray blown from the river by the wind and gathering in bigdrops? I thought quickly of a dozen things.

  Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough from the poplar,the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind. Still halfcaught by the other branches, it would fall with the next gust and crushus, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the tight canvassurface of the tent. I raised a loose flap and rushed out, calling to theSwede to follow.

  But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. Therewas no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.

  A cold, grey light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the faintlygleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead, and the windhowled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any glow, and I sawthe east reddening in streaks through the trees. Several hours must havepassed since I stood there before watching the ascending figures, and thememory of it now came back to me horribly, like an evil dream. Oh, howtired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging wind! Yet, though the deeplassitude of a sleepless night was on me, my nerves were tingling with theactivity of an equally tireless apprehension, and all idea of repose wasout of the question. The river I saw had risen further. Its thunder filledthe air, and a fine spray made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt.

  Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidence of anything to causealarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained whollyunaccounted for.

  My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need towaken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything; theturned-over canoe; the yellow paddles--two of them, I'm certain; theprovision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree; and,crowding everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those endless,shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string of duckpassed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand whirled, dryand stinging, about my bare feet in the wind.

  I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, sothat I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the sameprofound yet indefinable emotion of distress seized upon me again as I sawthe interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, looking ghostlyand unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked softly here and there, stillpuzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of that pressureupon the tent that had wakened me. It must have been the wind, Ireflected--the wind bearing upon the loose, hot sand, driving the dryparticles smartly against the taut canvas--the wind dropping heavily uponour fragile roof.

  Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably.

  I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast-line hadaltered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. Idipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my forehead.Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the exquisite freshnessof coming day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath the very busheswhere I had seen the column of figures rising into the air, and midwayamong the clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sense of vastterror. From the shadows a large figure went swiftly by. Someone passed me,as sure as ever man did....

  It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward again,and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror diminishedstrangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember saying to myself,for the winds often move like great presences under the trees. Andaltogether the fear that hovered about me was such an unknown and immensekind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt before, that it woke asense of awe and wonder in me that did much to counteract its worsteffects; and when I reached a high point in the middle of the island fromwhich I could see the wide stretch of river, crimson in the sunrise, thewhole magical beauty of it all was so overpowering that a sort of wildyearning woke in me and almost brought a cry up into the throat.

  But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the plainbeyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden amongthe willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to which myterror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.

  For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of thelandscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different view,but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the relation of thetent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes nowcrowded much closer--unnecessarily, unpleasantly close. They had movednearer.

  Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptiblynearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during thenight. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves? Irecalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon thetent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I swayed for amoment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright positionon the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of personal agency, ofdeliberate intention, of aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into asort of rigidity.

  Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd,that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily thanthe cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such dangerousimaginings brought the additional terror that it was through our minds andnot through our physical bodies that the attack would come, and was coming.

  The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came upover the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood onthat little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down toclose quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent,first taking another exhaustive look round and--yes, I confess it--making afew measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the distances between thewillows and the tent, making a note of the shortest distance particularly.

  I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all appearances,still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. Provided myexperiences were not corroborated, I could find strength somehow to denythem, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all asubjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of theexcited imagination.

  Nothing further came in to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at once,utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again that weird sound ofmultitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart that hadmade it difficult to breathe.

  The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavysleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just time tobathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent door.

  "River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in mid-stream havedisappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."

  "Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.

  "The wood and the island will finish tomorrow in a dead heat," he laughed,"but there's enough to last us till then."

  I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a lotin size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment to thelanding-place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks flew bylike the country from an express train. Bathing under such conditions wasan exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night seemed cleansed outof me by a process of evaporation in the brain. The sun was blazing hot;not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the wind, however, had not abated onelittle jot.

  Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed acrossme, showing that he no longer wished to leave post-haste, and had changedhis mind. "Enough to last till tomorrow"--he assumed we should stay on theisland another night. It struck me as odd. The night before he was sopositive the other way. How had the change come about?

  Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy splashingsand clouds of
spray which the wind brought into our frying-pan, and myfellow-traveler talked incessantly about the difficulty the Vienna-Pesthsteamers must have to find the channel in flood. But the state of his mindinterested and impressed me far more than the state of the river or thedifficulties of the steamers. He had changed somehow since the eveningbefore. His manner was different--a trifle excited, a trifle shy, with asort of suspicion about his voice and gestures. I hardly know how todescribe it now in cold blood, but at the time I remember being quitecertain of one thing--that he had become frightened?

  He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. Hehad the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings.

  "We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently, feeling for anopening that must bring him indirectly to a partial confession at any rate.And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let us."

  "Who'll let