Sangree gripped his gun and looked about swiftly in the darkness.  I saw his eyes aflame in the glare of the flickering lanterns.  He made a movement as though to start out and hunt—­and kill.  Then his glance fell on the girl crouching on the ground, her face hidden in her hands, and there leaped into his features an expression of savage anger that transformed them.  He could have faced a dozen lions with a walking stick at that moment, and again I liked him for the strength of his anger, his self-control, and his hopeless devotion.

But I stopped him going off on a blind and useless chase.

“Come and help me start the fire, Sangree,” I said, anxious also to relieve the girl of our presence; and a few minutes later the ashes, still growing from the night’s fire, had kindled the fresh wood, and there was a blaze that warmed us well while it also lit up the surrounding trees within a radius of twenty yards.

“I heard nothing,” he whispered; “what in the world do you think it is?  It surely can’t be only a dog!”

“We’ll find that out later,” I said, as the others came up to the grateful warmth; “the first thing is to make as big a fire as we can.”

Joan was calmer now, and her mother had put on some warmer, and less miraculous, garments.  And while they stood talking in low voices Maloney and I slipped off to examine the tent.  There was little enough to see, but that little was unmistakable.  Some animal had scratched up the ground at the head of the tent, and with a great blow of a powerful paw—­a paw clearly provided with good claws—­had struck the silk and torn it open.  There was a hole large enough to pass a fist and arm through.

“It can’t be far away,” Maloney said excitedly.  “We’ll organise a hunt at once; this very minute.”

We hurried back to the fire, Maloney talking boisterously about his proposed hunt.  “There’s nothing like prompt action to dispel alarm,” he whispered in my ear; and then turned to the rest of us.

“We’ll hunt the island from end to end at once,” he said, with excitement; “that’s what we’ll do.  The beast can’t be far away.  And the Bo’sun’s Mate and Joan must come too, because they can’t be left alone.  Hubbard, you take the right shore, and you, Sangree, the left, and I’ll go in the middle with the women.  In this way we can stretch clean across the ridge, and nothing bigger than a rabbit can possibly escape us.”  He was extraordinarily excited, I thought.  Anything affecting Joan, of course, stirred him prodigiously.  “Get your guns and we’ll start the drive at once,” he cried.  He lit another lantern and handed one each to his wife and Joan, and while I ran to fetch my gun I heard him singing to himself with the excitement of it all.

Meanwhile the dawn had come on quickly.  It made the flickering lanterns look pale.  The wind, too, was rising, and I heard the trees moaning overhead and the waves breaking with increasing clamour on the shore.  In the lagoon the boat dipped and splashed, and the sparks from the fire were carried aloft in a stream and scattered far and wide.