At first he fidgeted and constantly sat
up, asking me if I "heard this" or "heard that." He tossed about on his
cork mattress, and said the tent was moving and the river had risen over
the point of the island, but each time I went out to look I returned with
the report that all was well, and finally he grew calmer and lay still.
Then at length his breathing became regular and I heard unmistakable sounds
of snoring--the first and only time in my life when snoring has been a
welcome and calming influence.
This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before dozing off.
A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my face.
But something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my first
thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress on to my own in
his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same moment it came to me
that the tent was surrounded. That sound of multitudinous soft pattering
was again audible outside, filling the night with horror.
I called again to him, louder than before. He did not answer, but I missed
the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the tent was
down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the darkness to hook
it back securely, and it was then for the first time I realized positively
that the Swede was not here. He had gone.
I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the moment I
was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that surrounded me
completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at once.
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