And in the
end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we
should be drawn across the frontier into their world.
Small things testified to the amazing influence of the place, and now in
the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the mind.
The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every
indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making
signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its natural
character, and revealed in something of its other aspect--as it existed
across the border to that other region. And this changed aspect I felt was
now not merely to me, but to the race. The whole experience whose verge we
touched was unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order of experience,
and in the true sense of the word unearthly.
"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to
zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my
thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle, the
canoe, the lessening food--"
"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.
"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."
He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the "plain
determination to provide a victim"; but, having now arranged my thoughts
better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his frightened soul
against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a vital part, and that
he would be somehow taken or destroyed.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65