The storm was at its height; the thunder was echoing in and out of the rocky hollows of the island and in the moments of stillness the gurgling and splashing of the rain filled our ears. Then came a blinding lightning flash, brighter and more enduring than the rest. It lit up the whole clearing and revealed the cross over the grave of the Unknown standing out hard and black against a fantastic background of bending, straining tree-trunks with branches and leaves blown out in the wind. And by its light, before the brightness died, I saw the figure of a man standing with bowed head at the grave.
CHAPTER XI
A VOICE IN THE FOREST
I saw only him for the fraction of a second, a young man, tall and slim and very blonde, in a shirt open at the neck and riding-breeches, his head bared to the storm. The water streamed off his face and clothing; but he stood perfectly still in an attitude of reverence. In that wild setting of tempest-swept rocks the apparition seemed like some spectre of the Brocken. Or one might have thought that the storm had summoned forth the Unknown himself from his grave.
The vision fairly staggered me; for my mind was imbued with the idea that the island was uninhabited. But my brain keyed up by the events of the day, did not dwell for an instant on any supernatural explanation of the apparition. I promptly asked myself whether, after all, there were people living on the island or whether the man I had seen had, like ourselves, landed from some passing ship.
But then, without warning, there came an ear-shattering metallic crash, as though a big shell had exploded beside us, the earth shook and a perfect tornado of wind and water descended upon the clearing, clawing and tearing at the hut until it seemed as though the beams of the flimsy structure to which we desperately clung would be wrenched from our grasp. The inky-black sky appeared to split across in a jagged band of light which again showed up the clearing as bright as day. But now the tall wooden cross stood aloft in solitary majesty once more. The figure at the graveside had vanished and the clearing was entirely deserted. I asked myself whether the apparition had not, after all, been the figment of my imagination. Garth had seemingly remarked nothing so I resolved to say nothing about it unless he should ask me.
But now, amid the grumbling and rumbling of the thunder receding into the distance, the storm was passing. The air reeked with the stench of sulphur and I guessed that the appalling crash we had heard had marked the fall of a thunderbolt. Slowly the light was coming back and, though the rain yet descended in torrents, the downpour was much less heavy.
We were in a sorry plight, the pair of us. Our thin garments clung to us like wet swimming suits and our teeth chattered in our heads.
"We appear to have timed things very badly," grumbled Garth, wringing the water out of a corner of his tussore jacket. "We had plenty of warning of this storm. I should have thought we might have managed to have got back to the camp in time to escape it...."