Famous Modern Ghost Stories | Page 9

course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I
was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the
mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or
another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir
comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.
With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different, I felt. Some
essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but
of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror. Their serried ranks growing everywhere
darker about me as the shadows deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke
in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the
borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a world where we were not
wanted or invited to remain--where we ran grave risks perhaps!
The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely to analysis, did not
at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet it never left me quite, even during the
very practical business of putting up the tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for
the stew-pot. It remained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most delightful
camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my companion, however, I said
nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid of imagination. In the first place, I could
never have explained to him what I meant, and in the second, he would have laughed
stupidly at me if I had.
There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here we pitched the tent.
The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.
"A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent stood upright;
"no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving on early to-morrow--eh? This
sand won't hold anything."
But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us many devices, and we

made the cosy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then set about collecting a store of
wood to last till bedtime. Willow bushes drop no branches, and driftwood was our only
source of supply. We hunted the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were
crumbling as the rising flood tore at them and carried away great portions with a splash
and a gurgle.
"The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the accurate Swede. "It won't last
long at this rate. We'd better drag the canoe close to the tent, and be ready to start at a
moment's notice. I shall sleep in my clothes."
He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard his rather jolly laugh as
he spoke.
"By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what had caused his
exclamation; but for the moment he was hidden by the willows, and I could not find him.
"What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this time his voice had become
serious.
I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the river, pointing at
something in the water.
"Good Heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly. "Look!"
A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept rapidly past. It kept
disappearing and coming up to the surface again. It was about twenty feet from the shore,
and just as it was opposite to where we stood it lurched round and looked straight at us.
We saw its eyes reflecting the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned
over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a flash.
"An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing.
It was an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly like the body of a
drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far below it came to the surface once
again, and we saw its black skin, wet and shining in the sunlight.
Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, another thing happened to
recall us to the river bank. This time it really was a man, and what was more, a man in a
boat. Now a small boat on the Danube was an unusual sight at any time, but here in this
deserted region, and at flood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We
stood and stared.
Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from the wonderfully