The Willows

us? The elements?" I asked quickly, with affected indifference.

  "The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he replied, keeping hiseyes on the map. "The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in theworld."

  "The elements are always the true immortals," I replied, laughing asnaturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face reflectedmy true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke across thesmoke:

  "We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster."

  This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the pointof the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist toextract the tooth; it had to come anyhow in the long run, and the rest wasall pretence.

  "Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"

  "For one thing--the steering paddle's gone," he said quietly.

  "The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was ourrudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But what--"

  "And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a genuinelittle tremor in his voice.

  I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his facesomewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burningsand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got up tofollow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way towardsthe tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The canoe stilllay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs uppermost, the paddles,or rather, the paddle, on the sand beside her.

  "There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the rentin the base-board."

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed twopaddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think better ofit, and I said nothing. I approached to see.

  There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where alittle slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if thetooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and investigationshowed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in her withoutobserving it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the water wouldhave made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once out inmid-stream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never more thantwo inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very rapidly.

  "There, you see an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I heardhim saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he added ashe bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.

  I began to whistle--a thing I always do unconsciously when utterlynonplussed--and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was determinedto consider them foolish.

  "It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from hisexamination and looking anywhere but at me.

  "We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped whistling tosay. "The stones are very sharp."

  I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and met my eyesquarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation was.There were no stones, to begin with.

  "And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly, handing me thepaddle and pointing to the blade.

  A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and examinedit. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, as thoughsomeone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that the firstvigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow.

  "One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said feebly, "or--orit has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown against itby the wind, perhaps."

  "Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explaineverything."

  "The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near thebank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out afterhim, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything he showedme.

  "I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me beforedisappearing among the willow bushes.

  Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think myfirst thoughts took the form of "One of us must have done this thing, andit certainly was not I." But my second thought decided how impossible itwas to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either of us had done it.That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions, couldhave knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained fora moment. Equally absurd seemed the explanation that this imperturbable anddensely practical nature had suddenly become insane and was busied withinsane purposes.

  Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fearactively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was theclear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in hismind--that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did notspeak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionableevents--waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected, and, I thought,expected very soon. This grew up in my mind intuitively--I hardly knew how.

  I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but themeasurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formedin the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and of variousdepths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The wind,no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, just as it was forlifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoewas the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable; and, after all, it wasconceivable that a sharp point had caught it when we landed. Theexamination I made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all thesame I clung to it with that diminishing portion of my intelligence which Icalled my "reason." An explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity,just as some working explanation of the universe is necessary--howeverabsurd--to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty inthe world and face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at thetime an exact parallel.

  I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at thework, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could not besafe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention casually tothe hollows in the sand.

  "Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But you can explainthem, no doubt!"

  "Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you never watchedthose little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl everything intoa circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's all."

  He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched himsurreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. Heseemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could nothear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he keptturning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and outacross the water where it was visible through the openings among thewillows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there forseveral minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked noquestions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill andaddress of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the work,for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the changedaspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed that, my imagination could nolonger be held a sufficient explanation of it.