on that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down
at 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 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.


IV

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 midstream
have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."