ed.

"It's the willows, of course. The willows _mask_ the others, but the
others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear,
we're lost, lost utterly." He looked at me with an expression so calm,
so determined, so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his
sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. "If we can hold out through
the night," he added, "we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or
rather, _undiscovered_."

"But you really think a sacrifice would----"

That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads as I spoke,
but it was my friend's scared face that really stopped my mouth.

"Hush!" he whispered, holding up his hand. "Do not mention them more
than you can help. Do not refer to them _by name_. To name is to reveal:
it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them, in
order that they may ignore us."

"Even in thought?" He was extraordinarily agitated.

"Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We
must keep them _out of our minds_ at all costs if possible."

I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its
own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then in the awful
blackness of that summer night.

"Were you awake all last night?" he went on suddenly.

"I slept badly a little after dawn," I replied evasively, trying to
follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively were true, "but the
wind, of course--"

"I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises."

"Then you heard it too?"

"The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard," he said, adding,
after a moment's hesitation, "and that other sound--"

"You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of something
tremendous, gigantic?"

He nodded significantly.

"It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?" I said.

"Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had been
altered--had increased enormously, so that we should be crushed."

"And _that_," I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards
where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like
wind. "What do you make of that?"

"It's _their_ sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the sound of their
world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it
leaks through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you'll find it's
not above so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's