The Isle Is Full of Noises by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Tanith, Lee,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

As it had run by, fleet, leaping, a mouth gaped a hundred teeth—like the mouth of a shark breaking from the ocean. Or had they mistaken that?

Did it have eyes, the great black animal which had run by the window?

Surely it had eyes—

Vonderjan had stood up, and now he pulled a stick from a vase against the wall—as another man might pick up an umbrella, or a poker—and he was opening wide the doors, so the women shrank together and away.

The light of day was gone. The sky was blushing to black. Nothing was there.

Vonderjan called peremptorily into the darkness. To Jean-jacques the call sounded meaningless, gibberish, something like Hooh! Hoouah! Vonderjan was not afraid, possibly not even disconcerted or intrigued.

Nothing moved. Then, below, lights broke out on the open space, a servant shouted shrilly in the patois.

Vonderjan shouted down, saying it was nothing. "Go back inside." He turned and looked at the two women and the man in the salon. "Some animal." He banged the doors shut.

"It—looked like a lion," Jeanjacques stammered. But no. It had been like a shark, a fish, which bounded on two or three legs, and stooping low.

The servants must have seen it, too. Alarmed and alerted, they were still disturbed, and generally calling out now. Another woman screamed, and then there was the crash of glass.

"Fools," said Vonderjan, without any expression or contempt. He nodded at the housekeeper. "Go and tell them I say it's all right."

The woman dithered, then scurried away—by the house door, avoiding the terrace. Nanetta, too, had stood up, and her eyes had their silver rings. They, more even than the thing which ran across the window, terrified Jeanjacques.

"What was it? Was it a wild pig?" asked the clerk, aware he sounded like a scared child.

"A pig. What pig? No. Where could it go?"

"Has it climbed up the wall?" Jeanjacques rasped.

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