It echoed away among the fog and the trees and lost
itself somewhere out over the hidden sea. And some part of
myself--something that was far more than the mere act of intense
listening--went out with it, and for several minutes I lost
consciousness of my surroundings and felt utterly absorbed in the pain
of another stricken fellow-creature.
Again the voice of John Silence recalled me to myself.
"Hark!" he said aloud. "Hark!"
His tone galvanised me afresh. We stood listening side by side.
Far across the island, faintly sounding through the trees and brushwood,
came a similar, answering cry. Shrill, yet wonderfully musical, shaking
the heart with a singular wild sweetness that defies description, we
heard it rise and fall upon the night air.
"It's across the lagoon," Dr. Silence cried, but this time in full tones
that paid no tribute to caution. "It's Joan! She's answering him!"
Again the wonderful cry rose and fell, and that same instant the animal
lowered its head, and, muzzle to earth, set off on a swift easy canter
that took it off into the mist and out of our sight like a thing of wind
and vision.
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