and a faint whitish light spread
upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind
stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the pale
sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about the
island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first
words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and
the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet round
me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots,
and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the preventing
branches.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island's point and saw a
dark figure outlined between the water and the sky. It was the Swede.
And already he had one foot in the river! A moment more and he would
have taken the plunge.

I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging
him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously,
making a noise all the time just like that cursed humming, and using the
most outlandish phrases in his anger about "going _inside_ to Them," and
"taking the way of the water and the wind," and God only knows what more
besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but which turned me
sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in the end I managed
to get him into the comparative safety of the tent, and flung him
breathless and cursing upon the mattress, where I held him until the fit
had passed.

I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm,
coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming
and pattering outside--I think this was almost the strangest part of the
whole business perhaps. For he just opened his eyes and turned his tired
face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the
doorway, and said, for all the world just like a frightened child:

"My life, old man--it's my life I owe you. But it's all over now anyhow.
They've found a victim in our place!"

Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally under
my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to snore again as healthily as
though nothing had happened and he had never tried to offer his own life
as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours
later--hours of ceaseless vigil for me--it became so clear to me that he
remembered absolutely nothing of what he had attempted to do, th