5 
JVayeeses the Strong One 
and that picked up a vagabond living in the idle sum¬ 
mer by hunting rabbits and raiding the fishermen’s 
flakes and pig-pens and by catching flounders in the sea 
as the tide ebbed. Venture among them with fear in 
your heart and they would fly at your legs and throat 
like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick jauntily, or better 
still go quietly on your way without concern, and they 
would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the 
corners of their surly eyes, whose lids were red and 
bloodshot as a mastiff’s. When the moon rose I noticed 
them flitting about like witches on the lonely shore, 
miles away from the hamlet; now sitting on their tails 
in a solemn circle; now howling all together as if de¬ 
mented, and anon listening intently in the vast silence, 
as if they heard or smelled or perhaps just felt the pres¬ 
ence of some unknown thing that was hidden from 
human senses. And when I paddled ashore to watch 
them one ran swiftly past without heeding me, his nose 
outstretched, his eyes green as foxfire in the moonlight, 
while the others vanished like shadows among the black 
rocks, each intent on his unknown quest. 
That is why I had come up from my warm bunk at 
midnight to sit alone on the taffrail, listening in the 
keen air to the howling that made me shiver, spite of 
myself, and watching in the vague moonlight to under¬ 
stand if possible what the brutes felt amid the primal 
silence and desolation. 
