this conversation that I woke out of deep sleep
and heard sounds of screaming. The voice was really horrible, breaking
the peace and silence with its shrill clamour. In less than ten seconds
I was half dressed and out of my tent. The screaming had stopped
abruptly, but I knew the general direction, and ran as fast as the
darkness would allow over to the women's quarters, and on getting close
I heard sounds of suppressed weeping. It was Joan's voice. And just as I
came up I saw Mrs. Maloney, marvellously attired, fumbling with a
lantern. Other voices became audible in the same moment behind me, and
Timothy Maloney arrived, breathless, less than half dressed, and
carrying another lantern that had gone out on the way from being banged
against a tree. Dawn was just breaking, and a chill wind blew in from
the sea. Heavy black clouds drove low overhead.

The scene of confusion may be better imagined than described. Questions
in frightened voices filled the air against this background of
suppressed weeping. Briefly--Joan's silk tent had been torn, and the
girl was in a state bordering upon hysterics. Somewhat reassured by our
noisy presence, however,--for she was plucky at heart,--she pulled
herself together and tried to explain what had happened; and her broken
words, told there on the edge of night and morning upon this wild island
ridge, were oddly thrilling and distressingly convincing.

"Something touched me and I woke," she said simply, but in a voice
still hushed and broken with the terror of it, "something pushing
against the tent; I felt it through the canvas. There was the same
sniffing and scratching as before, and I felt the tent give a little as
when wind shakes it. I heard breathing--very loud, very heavy
breathing--and then came a sudden great tearing blow, and the canvas
ripped open close to my face."

She had instantly dashed out through the open flap and screamed at the
top of her voice, thinking the creature had actually got into the tent.
But nothing was visible, she declared, and she heard not the faintest
sound of an animal making off under cover of the darkness. The brief
account seemed to exercise a paralysing effect upon us all as we
listened to it. I can see the dishevelled group to this day, the wind
blowing the women's hair, and Maloney craning his head forward to
listen, and his wife, open-mouthed and gasping, leaning against a pine
tree.

"Come over to the stockade and we'll get the fire goin