upon the threshold of doubt, I was assured
that I had not been mistaken; for, abruptly, I was aware that all the
valley was full of a rustling, scampering sort of noise, through which
there came to me occasional soft thuds, and anon the former slithering
sounds. And at that, thinking a host of evil things to be upon us, I
cried out to the bo'sun and the men to awake.

Immediately upon my shout, the bo'sun rushed out from the tent, the men
following, and every one with his weapon, save the man who had left his
spear in the sand, and that lay now somewhere beyond the light of the
fire. Then the bo'sun shouted, to know what thing had caused me to cry
out; but I replied nothing, only held up my hand for quietness, yet when
this was granted, the noises in the valley had ceased; so that the bo'sun
turned to me, being in need of some explanation; but I begged him to hark
a little longer, which he did, and, the sounds re-commencing almost
immediately, he heard sufficient to know that I had not waked them all
without due cause. And then, as we stood each one of us staring into the
darkness where lay the valley, I seemed to see again some shadowy thing
upon the boundary of the firelight; and, in the same instant, one of the
men cried out and cast his spear into the darkness. But the bo'sun turned
upon him with a very great anger; for in throwing his weapon, the man had
left himself without, and thus brought danger to the whole; yet, as will
be remembered, I had done likewise but a little since.

Presently, there coming again a quietness within the valley, and none
knowing what might be toward, the bo'sun caught up a mass of the dry
weed, and, lighting it at the fire, ran with it towards that portion of
the beach which lay between us and the valley. Here he cast it upon the
sand, singing out to some of the men to bring more of the weed, so that
we might have a fire there, and thus be able to see if anything made to
come at us out of the deepness of the hollow.

Presently, we had a very good fire, and by the light of this the two
spears were discovered, both of them stuck in the sand, and no more than
a yard one from the other, which seemed to me a very strange thing.

Now, for a while after the lighting of the second fire, there came no
further sounds from the direction of the valley; nothing indeed to break
the quietness of the island, save the occasional lonely splashes that
sounded from time to time out in the vastness of the