Read Algernon Blackwood for Free Online Page A

blown against it
by the wind, perhaps."
    "Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explain
everything."
    "The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the
bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out after
him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything he showed
me.
    "I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before
disappearing among the willow bushes.
    Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think my
first thoughts took the form of "One of us must have done this thing, and
it certainly was not I." But my second thought decided how impossible it
was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either of us had done it.
That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions, could
have knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained for
a moment. Equally absurd seemed the explanation that this imperturbable and
densely practical nature had suddenly become insane and was busied with
insane purposes.
    Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear
actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the
clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his
mind—that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did not
speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionable
events—waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected, and, I thought,
expected very soon. This grew up in my mind intuitively—I hardly knew how.
    I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the
measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formed
in the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and of various
depths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The wind,
no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, just as it was for
lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoe
was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable; and, after all, it was
conceivable that a sharp point had caught it when we landed. The
examination I made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all the
same I clung to it with that diminishing portion of my intelligence which I
called my "reason." An explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity,
just as some working explanation of the universe is necessary—however
absurd—to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in
the world and face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at the
time an exact parallel.
    I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at the
work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could not be
safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention casually to
the hollows in the sand.
    "Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But you can explain
them, no doubt!"
    "Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you never watched
those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl everything into
a circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's all."
    He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him
surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He
seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could not
hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he kept
turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out
across the water where it was visible through the openings among the
willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there for
several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked no
questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill and
address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the work,
for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the changed
aspect of the willows.