beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden
among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to
which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.

For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of
the landscape. 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 the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent.
Surely the bushes now crowded much closer--unnecessarily, unpleasantly
close. _They had moved nearer_.

Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptibly
nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during
the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves?
I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon
the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I
swayed for a 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