d headed with a good
breeze for the direction of Waxholm and the borders of civilisation.

IV

Although nothing John Silence did ever took me, properly speaking, by
surprise, it was certainly unexpected to find a letter from Stockholm
waiting for me. "I have finished my Hungary business," he wrote, "and am
here for ten days. Do not hesitate to send if you need me. If you
telephone any morning from Waxholm I can catch the afternoon steamer."

My years of intercourse with him were full of "coincidences" of this
description, and although he never sought to explain them by claiming
any magical system of communication with my mind, I have never doubted
that there actually existed some secret telepathic method by which he
knew my circumstances and gauged the degree of my need. And that this
power was independent of time in the sense that it saw into the future,
always seemed to me equally apparent.

Sangree was as much relieved as I was, and within an hour of sunset that
very evening we met him on the arrival of the little coasting steamer,
and carried him off in the dinghy to the camp we had prepared on a
neighbouring island, meaning to start for home early next morning.

"Now," he said, when supper was over and we were smoking round the fire,
"let me hear your story." He glanced from one to the other, smiling.

"You tell it, Mr. Hubbard," Sangree interrupted abruptly, and went off a
little way to wash the dishes, yet not so far as to be out of earshot.
And while he splashed with the hot water, and scraped the tin plates
with sand and moss, my voice, unbroken by a single question from Dr.
Silence, ran on for the next half-hour with the best account I could
give of what had happened.

My listener lay on the other side of the fire, his face half hidden by a
big sombrero; sometimes he glanced up questioningly when a point needed
elaboration, but he uttered no single word till I had reached the end,
and his manner all through the recital was grave and attentive.
Overhead, the wash of the wind in the pine branches filled in the
pauses; the darkness settled down over the sea, and the stars came out
in thousands, and by the time I finished the moon had risen to flood the
scene with silver. Yet, by his face and eyes, I knew quite well that the
doctor was listening to something he had expected to hear, even if he
had not actually anticipated all the details.

"You did well to send for me," he said very low, with a significa