her
feeling that I was losing it altogether, and about to die.

An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede
had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way
he caught at me in falling.

But it was this pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me: it caused
me to _forget them_ and think of something else at the very instant when
they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment
of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He
himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what
saved him.

I only know that at a later time, how long or short is impossible to
say, I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow
branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a
hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he
had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow.

"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say. "That's
what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them."

"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only connected
thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.

"That's what saved _you_!" he replied. "Between us, we've managed to set
them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's
gone--for the moment at any rate!"

A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to
my friend too--great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a
tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the
fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the
tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground.

We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than once and
caught our feet in sand.

"It's those sand-funnels," exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up
again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us.
"And look at the size of them!"

All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving
shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly
similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far
bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some instances
to admit the whole of my foot and leg.

Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing
we could do, and to bed we went accordingly without further delay,
having firs