ew-pot and preparations for
dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions,
bits of bacon fat to add flavour, and a general thick residue from
former stews at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into
it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of plums
with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood
lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. My
companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between
cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice--an admitted privilege of
the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in
re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for
driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had
passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the
gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was now fully a
third smaller than when we first landed.

The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me
from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.

"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it." He held his
hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.

"_Now_ do you hear anything?" he asked, watching me curiously.

We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only
the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent
surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound
began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound--something like the
humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the
darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated
at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell
nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much
as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky,
repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as
it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.

"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this
afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could
never get near enough to see--to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was
overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I
could have sworn it was not outside at all, but _within myself_--you
know--the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed