For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the
arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of
vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration
had apparently been effected in the relation of the tent
to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the
bushes now crowded much closer—unnecessarily, unpleasantly
close. They had moved nearer.
Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands,
drawing imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried movements,
the willows had come closer during the night. But had the
wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves? I
recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the
pressure upon the tent and upon my own heart that caused
me to wake in terror. I swayed for a moment in the wind
like a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright position
on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of
personal agency, of deliberate intention, of aggressive
hostility, and it terrified me into a sort of
rigidity.