indubitably walking round and round me in ever lessening circles, the big gander always nearest me. At first I felt incredulous, then silly, then resentful. And, as the gander, now and then honking, circled about me for the fifth or sixth time, I became conscious of an inner impulse, of an all but overmastering inner impulse, to seek out Pembroke and to tell him that I was willing to do anything he wanted me to do; to pledge myself to do anything he wanted me to do.
I took alarm. I felt, shamefacedly, but vividly, that I was being made the subject of some sort of attempted necromancy. All of a sudden I found myself aflame with resentment, with hatred of that gander. I leapt to my feet, I hurled my book at him, I ran after him, I threw at him my bamboo walking stick, barely missing him. I retrieved the walking-stick and pursued the retreating bird, and threw the cane at him a second time, almost hitting him.
The geese half waddled, half flew towards the beetling atrocities of the ornate rococco hill-side fountain; I followed, still infuriated. There was, along the walk before the fountain, an edging of lumps of coral rock defining the border of the flower-beds. I picked up an armful of the smaller pieces of angular coral rock, chased the geese into the big main basin of the fountain and pelted that gander with jagged chunks of coral. lie fled through the central manhole into the grotto and hissed at me through one of the gratings, behind which he was safe from my missiles.
Suddenly overwhelmed by a revulsion of shame and a tendency to laugh at myself, I beat a retreat to my veranda. There I sat, pondering my situation and my experiences.
I recalled that, at every dinner to which I had been invited, there had been, practically, but two subjects of conversation: the boredom of life on tropical islands in general and on Pembroke island in particular; and the worth, the fine qualities, the charm, the perfection of Pembroke himself.
I watched a chance to find Radnor at leisure, to waylay him, to entice him to my veranda. When the atmosphere of our talk seemed auspicious, I said:
“See here, Radnor! I know you said you meant to elude any queries I might put to you, but there is one question you'll have to answer, somehow. Why are all these people here?”
“That is easy,” Radnor laughed. “I have no objection to answering that question. They are here because Pembroke wants them here.”
“I didn't phrase my question well,” I said, “but you know what I mean. No one I have met really likes being here. Why do they stay?”
“That's easy, too,” Radnor smiled. “Almost anyone will stay almost anywhere if lodged comfortably and paid enough. Pembroke provides his hirelings with an overplus of luxuries and is more than liberal in payment.”
“That does not explain what intrigues me,” I pursued. “I haven't yet hit on the right words to express my idea. But you really understand me, I think, though you pretend you don't. All the inhabitants of these villas are not merely uneasy, they are consciously homesick, acutely homesick, homesick to a degree which no luxurious surroundings, no prospective savings could alleviate. They are pining for home. What keeps them here?”
“Put it down,” said Radnor, weightily, “to the unescapable charm of the island. That keeps them here.”
“Did you say witchery or enchantment?” I queried, meaningly.
Radnor was emphatic.
“I said charm!” he uttered. “Let it go at that.”
“I am not in the least inclined,” I retorted, “to let it go at that. I take it that this is no joke, certainly not anything to be dismissed by a clever play on words. I insist on knowing what makes all these people stay here. They all declare, at every opportunity, that they are dying of ennui, that the climate is uncongenial, that they long for temperate skies, for northern vegetation, for frosty nights. What keeps them here?”
“I tell you,” said Radnor, “that, like me, most human beings will do anything, anything lawful and reasonable, if paid high enough.”
“The rest aren't like you,” I asserted. “You and Mrs. Radnor impress me as free agents, doing, for a consideration, what you have been asked to do, and what you both, after weighing the pros and cons, have agreed to do. All the others, Europeans, Americans and Asiatics, except Mother Bevan, appear like beings hypnotized and moving in a trance, mere living automatons, without any will of their own, actuated solely by Pembroke's will; as much so as if they were mechanical dolls. They impress me as being mesmerized or bewitched. I seriously vow that I believe they have been subjected to some supernatural or magical influence. They are as totally dominated by Pembroke as if they were the ends of his fingers.”
Radnor looked startled. “It will do no good,” I cried, “to contradict me or to deny it.”
“I believe you,” Radnor said, as if thinking out loud. He went on:
“You are right. Except Mother Bevan and me and Lucille every human being on this island is completely under Pembroke's influence, gained largely through the help of Mother Bevan.”
“Why not you and your wife?” I queried.
“Lucille, because of me,” he replied. “Pembroke found out, by trying Melville here and Kennard, that, after being put under his influence, while retaining surgical skill, a physician loses all ability to diagnose and prescribe. He had to ship Kennard and Melville back home, and pension them till their faculties recovered their tone.”
I looked him straight in the eyes. He forestalled my impending outburst by saying: “As far as I can discern, Pembroke's influence over his retainers does them no harm, physical or mental. Kennard and Melville have as large incomes and as many patients and are as successful and prosperous, as popular and prominent among their fellow-physicians as if they had never sojourned here. Except in their enthusiasm for and admiration of Pembroke every human being on this island appears to me as healthy as if not under any influence of any kind.”
“Even so,” I blurted out, “you ought not to abet any such deviltries.”
“I don't admit,” said Radnor, hotly, “that any deviltries exist on this island or that there is any approach to deviltry in what you have partly divined. Also I abet nothing, as I ought, but, as I also ought, I conceive that I am under obligations not to thwart Pembroke in any way. I am the island's resident physician and his personal physician; I am here to treat injuries, cure maladies, relieve pain, and do all I can to keep healthy every dweller on this island. I live up to my conception of my duty. Don't attempt to preach at me.
“I am impatient,” I said, “at my enforced stay here, and revolted at the idea of succumbing to Pembroke's influence.”
Radnor laughed.
“You are,” he said, “the only human being who has reached the island, since Pembroke bought it, uninvited. You'll get away by and by. And you are most unlikely to be affected by anything he or Mother Bevan may have in their power to do. Neither Kennard nor Melville ever suspected anything, or grew suspicious. You alone have half seen through the situation here. You are Mother Bevan's most refractory subject, so far. Have no fear.”
He went off, whistling Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz.
I had frequent and recurrent fears, but I dissembled them. I think, among all the terrors which haunted me during the remainder of my sojourn on the island, that I came nearest to panic and horror within an hour after Radnor had left me. Hardly was he gone when Pembroke, arrayed precisely as before and reminding me of a stage- frog in a goblin pantomime, sauntered up and seated himself by me.
I sweated with tremors of dismay, I was ready to despair, when I found myself, however I tried, unable to utter a word to him concerning the gander, Mother Bevan, or my suspicions; unable even to allude to the subject in any way, although he asked me bluntly:
“Have you anything to complain of?”
“Only that I am here,” I replied.
“I had nothing to do with your coming here,” he retorted. 'You came uninvited, of your own accord, or by accident. I trust I have been a courteous host, but I have not tried to pretend that you are welcome. I am endeavoring to arrange that your departure shall not entail upon me any inconvenience or any danger of disadvantageous consequences. Believe me, I am doing all I can to expedite your return to your normal haunts. Meantime you'll have to be patient.”
I was most impatient and very nearly frantic at finding myself, no matter how I struggled inwardly, totally unable so much as to refer or allude to what lay heaviest on my mind.
We exchanged vaguely generalized sentences for awhile and he left as abruptly as before, left me quivering with consternation, dreading that my inability to broach the subject on which I was eager to beard him was a premonition of my total enthrallment to Pembroke's influence.
As the days passed I became habituated to stoning that uncanny gander, chasing him into the basin of the fountain and having him hiss at me from behind one of the gratings; I became indifferent to the glimpses I caught of
