Algernon Blackwood Read Online Free PDF Page B

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moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright position
on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of personal agency, of
deliberate intention, of aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into a
sort 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 than
the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such dangerous
imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through our minds and
not 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 up
over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood on
that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down to
close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent,
first taking another exhaustive look round and—yes, I confess it—making a
few measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the distances between the
willows 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 my
experiences were not corroborated, I could find strength somehow to deny
them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all a
subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the
excited 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 of
multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart that had
made it difficult to breathe.
    The sun was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy
sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just time to
bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent door.
    "River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in mid-stream have
disappeared 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 lot
in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment to the
landing-place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks flew by
like the country from an express train. Bathing under such conditions was
an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night seemed cleansed out
of 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 one
little jot.
    Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed across
me, showing that he no longer wished to leave post-haste, and had changed
his mind. "Enough to last till tomorrow"—he assumed we should stay on the
island another night. It struck me as odd. The night before he was so
positive the other way. How had the change come about?
    Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy splashings
and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our frying-pan, and my
fellow-traveler talked incessantly about the difficulty the Vienna-Pesth
steamers must have to find the channel in flood. But the state of his mind
interested and impressed me far more than the state of the river or the
difficulties of the steamers. He had changed somehow since the evening
before. His manner was different—a trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a
sort of suspicion about his voice and gestures. I hardly know how to
describe it now in cold blood, but at the time I remember being quite
certain of one thing—that he had become frightened?
    He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. He
had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its