At four o’clock Gaspard was standing at the end of the little pier of coral reef just at the place where he had been standing yesterday, when Yves’ voice had called him to see the treasure. There were no fish visible in the water to-day, nothing floated there but an occasional scrap of seaweed. The clear water, bright as a diamond and green as an emerald, held the gaze with the fascination that lies in a globe of crystal. Out here at the end of the projecting spur of reef, with the sea on either side, one felt as though one were standing on the deck of a boat.
It was pleasant out here with the sea coming in gently around the rocks, leaving scarcely a trace of foam, scarcely a trace of sound; the islet was singing to the little waves, but the reef only gurgled, slobbered slightly when a higher ridge of swell lapped the more exposed portions, and sighed as the water sinking exposed the weeds, the clinging shells, and the coralline growths.
Gaspard, standing, looking into the green depths, mesmerized by their crystal clearness and thinking of nothing, was suddenly brought to consciousness by the feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He wheeled round. Nothing. The reef, the islet, sea and sky were destitute of life, yet distinctly he had felt as though someone were standing behind him, almost in touch with him, almost breathing upon his neck; and he felt that if he had turned more sharply he would have caught sight of the viewless one; and the reef, the islet, sea and sky, had for a moment a simpering look, as though they had succeeded in the trick of snatching the Unseen One away before he could be glimpsed.
The absurdity of this idea destroyed it almost as soon as it was born. He shook the sensation off with a little shiver and, casting his eyes over the sea-line again as if in search for a ship, he began to walk along the reef back to the shore.
He was stepping from the reef on to the sand, when upon the sand he saw something that brought his breathing to a stop. The imprint of a naked foot.
It was a foot-mark left by Yves, and there was nothing supernatural about it at all; it had been left on the previous day, and it was still sharp and clear, for a ledge of the reef had protected it from the wind and the blowing sand; but to Gaspard it was more terrible than the naked face of Death.
He walked away from the terrible thing with his hand clutching at his heart, his eyes cast from side to side, not daring to look back. He did not know where he was going, but his feet led him to the palm clump.
Here he sat down with his back to a tree bole. The terror was behind him and the tree seemed to fend it off. The tree was a living thing; all at once it had stepped out of the semi-inanimate world where trees dwell and flowers, and had become a living personality. In his supreme terror he could have turned and embraced it, but he was afraid for a moment to move from his position, just as a man is afraid to move who, attacked by enemies, has his back to a wall.
Such terror does not last in its entirety for more than a brief space of time. Reason came to his assistance. He remembered that Yves had been by the reef end on the day before. The foot-mark was a real thing. No ghost could have left it.
He was telling himself this when,