Bab Bab 9 · 第9章

They talked little, and then only of the most wholesome and common

things, for their minds were charged with painful thoughts that

clamoured for explanation, though no one dared refer to them. Hank,

being nearest to primitive conditions, was the first to find himself,

for he was also less complex. In Dr. Cathcart "civilization" championed

his forces against an attack singular enough. To this day, perhaps, he

is not _quite_ sure of certain things. Anyhow, he took longer to "find

himself."

Simpson, the student of divinity, it was who arranged his conclusions

probably with the best, though not most scientific, appearance of order.

Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely

witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive. Something that

had survived somehow the advance of humanity had emerged terrifically,

betraying a scale of life still monstrous and immature. He envisaged it

rather as a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic

and uncouth, still oppressed the hearts of men; when the forces of nature

were still untamed, the Powers that may have haunted a primeval universe

not yet withdrawn. To this day he thinks of what he termed years later

in a sermon "savage and formidable Potencies lurking behind the souls of

men, not evil perhaps in themselves, yet instinctively hostile to humanity

as it exists."

With his uncle he never discussed the matter in detail, for the barrier

between the two types of mind made it difficult. Only once, years later,

something led them to the frontier of the subject--of a single detail of

the subject, rather--

"Can't you even tell me what--_they_ were like?" he asked; and the reply,

though conceived in wisdom, was not encouraging, "It is far better you

should not try to know, or to find out."

"Well--that odour...?" persisted the nephew. "What do you make of that?"

Dr. Cathcart looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

"Odours," he replied, "are not so easy as sounds and sights of telepathic

communication. I make as much, or as little, probably, as you do

yourself."

He was not quite so glib as usual with his explanations. That was all.

* * * * *

At the fall of day, cold, exhausted, famished, the party came to the

end of the long portage and dragged themselves into a camp that at

first glimpse seemed empty. Fire there was none, and no Punk came

forward to welcome them. The emotional capacity of all three was too

over-spent to recognize either surprise or annoyance; but the cry of

spontaneous affection that burst from the lips of Hank, as he rushed

ahead of them towards the fire-place, came probably as a warning that

the end of the amazing affair was not quite yet. And both Cathcart and

his nephew confessed afterwards that when they saw him kneel down in

his excitement and embrace something that reclined, gently moving,

beside the extinguished ashes, they felt in their very bones that this

"something" would prove to be Défago--the true Défago, returned.

And so, indeed, it was.

It is soon told. Exhausted to the point of emaciation, the French

Canadian--what was left of him, that is--fumbled among the ashes, trying

to make a fire. His body crouched there, the weak fingers obeying feebly

the instinctive habit of a lifetime with twigs and matches. But there

was no longer any mind to direct the simple operation. The mind had

fled beyond recall. And with it, too, had fled memory. Not only recent

events, but all previous life was a blank.

This time it was the real man, though incredibly and horribly shrunken.

On his face was no expression of any kind whatever--fear, welcome, or

recognition. He did not seem to know who it was that embraced him, or

who it was that fed, warmed and spoke to him the words of comfort and

relief. Forlorn and broken beyond all reach of human aid, the little man

did meekly as he was bidden. The "something" that had constituted him

"individual" had vanished for ever.

In some ways it was more terribly moving than anything they had yet

seen--that idiot smile as he drew wads of coarse moss from his swollen

cheeks and told them that he was "a damned moss-eater"; the continued

vomiting of even the simplest food; and, worst of all, the piteous

and childish voice of complaint in which he told them that his feet

pained him--"burn like fire"--which was natural enough when Dr. Cathcart

examined them and found that both were dreadfully frozen. Beneath the

eyes there were faint indications of recent bleeding.

The details of how he survived the prolonged exposure, of where he had

been, or of how he covered the great distance from one camp to the

other, including an immense detour of the lake on foot since he had

no canoe--all this remains unknown. His memory had vanished completely.

And before the end of the winter whose beginning witnessed this strange

occurrence, Défago, bereft of mind, memory and soul, had gone with it.

He lingered only a few weeks.

And what Punk was able to contribute to the story throws no further

light upon it. He was cleaning fish by the lake shore about five o'clock

in the evening--an hour, that is, before the search party returned--when

he saw this shadow of the guide picking its way weakly into camp. In

advance of him, he declares, came the faint whiff of a certain singular

odour.

That same instant old Punk started for home. He covered the entire

journey of three days as only Indian blood could have covered it. The

terror of a whole race drove him. He knew what it all meant. Défago

had "seen the Wendigo."