“You keep behind me.” Don led us now, with his gun half raised. “Don’t talk when we get further along, and walk as quietly as you can.”
The narrow path followed the bottom of the cliff. We presently had the open sea before us, with a line of reefs a few hundred yards out against which the lazy ground swell was breaking in a line of white. The moonlit water lapped gently at our feet. The cliff rose to our right, a mass of gray-black rock, pitted and broken, fantastically indented, unreal in the moonlight.
“I seen it—just about there,” Willie whispered.
Before us, a little rock headland jutted out into the water. Don halted us, and we stood silent, gazing. I think that there is hardly any place more fantastic than a Bermuda shorefront in the moonlight. In these little eroded recesses, caves and grottoes one might expect to see crooked-legged gnomes, scampering to peer at the human intruder. Gnarled cedars, hanging precariously, might hide pixies and elves. A child’s dream of fairyland, this reality of a Bermuda shorefront.
“There it is!”
WILLIE’S sibilant whisper dispelled my roaming fancy. We all turned to stare behind us in the direction of Willie’s unsteady finger. And we all saw it—the white shape of a man down near the winding path we had just traversed. A wild thrill of fear, excitement, revulsion—call it what you will—surged over me. The thing had been following us!
We stood frozen, transfixed. The shape was almost at the water level, a hundred feet or so away. It had stopped its advance; to all appearances it was a man standing there, calmly regarding us. Don and I swung around to face it, shoving Jane and Willie behind us.
Willie had started off in terror, but Jane gripped him.
“Quiet, Willie!”
“There it is! See it—”