s, just as if she was going to thump herself ashore--and then
she began to slip off sideways like a misbegotten crab, and backward,
too--until what with the darkness tumbling down, and a point o' palms, I
lost sight of her. Why didn't I shout, and threaten, and jump up and
down?

Because I was alone on Prana Beach, between the sea and the swamp. And
because the god was beginning to get stirred up; and because now that
I'd gone through six weeks' fever and boils to get where I was, I wished
I hadn't gotten there. No, I wasn't scared. You wouldn't be if you were
alone on a beach, after sundown, deserted you may say, your legs shaky
with being wet, and your heart hot and mad as fire because you couldn't
digest the things you had to put into your stomach, and if you'd heard
that the beach was the most malodorous, ghoul-haunted beach of the seas,
and if just as you were saying to yourself that _you_ for one didn't
believe a word of it--if, I say, just then _It_ began to cut loose--back
of you--way off to the left--way off to the right--why you'd have been
scared.

It wasn't the noise it made so much as the fact that it could make any
noise at all.... Shut your mouth tight and hum on the letter
m-mmmmmmm--that's it exactly. Only It's was ten times as loud, and
vibrating. The vibrations shook me where I stood.

With the wind right, that humming must have carried a mile out to sea;
and that's how it had gotten about that there was a god loose on Prana
Beach. It was an It-god, the niggers all agreed. You'll have seen 'em
carved on paddles--shanks of a man, bust of a woman, nose of a
snapping-turtle, and mouth round like the letter O. But the Prana Beach
one didn't show itself that first night. It hummed
awhile--m-m-m-m-m--oh, for maybe a minute--stopped and began
again--jumped a major fifth, held it till it must have been half burst
for breath, and then went down the scale an octave, hitting every note
in the middle, and giving the effect of one damned soul meeting another
out in eternity and yelling for pure joy and malice. The finish was a
whoop on the low note so loud that it lifted my hair. Then the howl was
cut off as sharp and neat and sudden as I've seen a Chinaman's head
struck from his body by the executioner at Canton--Big Wan--ever seen
him work? Very pretty. Got to perfection what golfers call "the follow
through."

Yes. I sauntered into the nearest grove, whistling "Yankee Doodle,"
lighted a fire, cooked supper