we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it!
Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as I lay on the
sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the stars. For the
last time I rose to get firewood.

"When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in," and my
companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding shadows.

For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive that
night, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He too
was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not altogether
pleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him, and instead of
immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far point of the island
where the moonlight on plain and river could be seen to better advantage.
The desire to be alone had come suddenly upon me; my former dread returned
in force; there was a vague feeling in me I wished to face and probe to the
bottom.

When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the waves, the spell of
the place descended upon me with a positive shock. No mere "scenery" could
have produced such an effect. There was something more here, something to
alarm.

I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering willows;
I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one and all, each
in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange distress. But the
willows especially; for ever they went on chattering and talking among
themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying out, sometimes sighing--but
what it was they made so much to-do about belonged to the secret life of
the great plain they inhabited. And it was utterly alien to the world I