I believe--I have thought since--I
could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice
and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.
But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the trees
waving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion,
blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshot
of the house in the chequered wall.

IX. THE THING IN THE FOREST.

I STRODE through the undergrowth that clothed the ridge behind the house,
scarcely heeding whither I went; passed on through the shadow of a thick
cluster of straight-stemmed trees beyond it, and so presently found
myself some way on the other side of the ridge, and descending towards
a streamlet that ran through a narrow valley. I paused and listened.
The distance I had come, or the intervening masses of thicket,
deadened any sound that might be coming from the enclosure.
The air was still. Then with a rustle a rabbit emerged, and went
scampering up the slope before me. I hesitated, and sat down in the edge
of the shade.

The place was a pleasant one. The rivulet was hidden
by the luxuriant vegetation of the banks save at one point,
where I caught a triangular patch of its glittering water.
On the farther side I saw through a bluish haze a tangle of trees
and creepers, and above these again the luminous blue of the sky.
Here and there a splash of white or crimson marked the blooming of some
trailing epiphyte. I let my eyes wander over this scene for a while,
and then began to turn over in my mind again the strange peculiarities
of Montgomery's man. But it was too hot to think elaborately,
and presently I fell into a tranquil state midway between dozing
and waking.

From this I was aroused, after I know not how long, by a
rustling amidst the greenery on the other side of the stream.
For a moment I could see nothing but the waving summits of
the ferns and reeds. Then suddenly upon the bank of the stream
appeared Something--at first I could not distinguish what it was.
It bowed its round head to the water, and began to drink.
Then I saw it was a man, going on all-fours like a beast. He was clothed
in bluish cloth, and was of a copper-coloured hue, with black hair.
It seemed that grotesque ugliness was an invariable character of
these islanders. I could hear the suck of the water at his lips as
he drank.

I leant forward to see him better, and a piece of lava, de