neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of
something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and
smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting
bolt upright--listening.

Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had
been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had
first become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had
not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with
difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my
body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered.
Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the tent and
weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was this
the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown from
the river by the wind and gathering in big drops? 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 half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next
gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the
tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised the loose flap and rushed
out, calling to the Swede to follow.

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

A cold, gray light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the
faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead,
and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any