Free Appleby on Ararat by Michael Innes

message of isolation and of the world forgot and, inland, an unknown creature screamed in short, decisive agony. There was now a star, terribly remote, in the irregular patch of darkening sky above; underfoot, the jacaranda carpet glowed momentarily vivid before being taken by the night… Appleby paused on the edge of the glade and summarised the position as best he could.
    He was on an island. For this he had the evidence of his eyes, laboriously transported to a central eminence the day before. From this point, perhaps two thousand feet up and inevitably named Mount Ararat, there could be seen a girdle of unbroken ocean. That the island formed part of a group there was no sign, nor was there any sign of an objective correlative to the mirage which, at sea-level, sometimes appeared at sunset. The island stood alone, and a fair amount of wandering had disposed them to believe that they stood alone on the island. Its total extent was not great, and only one area – screened both from sight and from ready access by a spur running east from Mount Ararat – was unknown to them; it could be little more, this, than a strip of coast.
    Appleby shivered – not because of the sinister possibilities on the fringe of his mind, but simply because at sundown it grew suddenly cold. Commonly they lit a great fire. He stepped into the glade and persuaded himself that he was concentrating his mind on whether one should be lit tonight. He was conscious of moving as in a shallow well of faint and diffused light around which were dark walls of jungle. He passed the little palisade of brush and palm-leaves that was Diana’s sleeping-quarters, passed a similar structure of Miss Curricle’s – and stopped. Before him now was a contrivance of Glover’s in course of construction, a sort of wash-place composed of stones and clay. It was not entirely a success, for in places the clay remained obstinately damp. And at one of these places he was looking now, his eye held by something just evident in the failing light. What he saw was a single footprint in the damp clay – the single print of five toes and the ball of a foot. He stared at it, patently astounded and obscurely disturbed. Man Friday had appeared, and in a great hurry at that. He knelt down with sudden minute interest in the thing; rose with an air of something like conviction. He stood still, trying to weigh chances as they might be interpreted on the evidence of half-forgotten books. Then he went over to the fireplace and knelt down once more, vulnerable as in a dream, and blew on the embers. There was kindling-wood to hand and within a few minutes the fire flared as usual. He fell to preparing what Glover called dinner and Diana tea. It occurred to him to whistle and he whistled an approximation to the overture of Figaro , stuff strictly musical but related nevertheless to the common emotion of joy. And now night had really fallen.
    There was Diana’s pigeon of the morning – Diana’s and the black man’s pigeon – to bake in a shell of clay. The black man had been black; perhaps there was something in that. Moreover he had possessed certain specific curiosities; perhaps there was something in that too. Appleby stiffened at a sound from the darkness. He relaxed; it was a clumsy sound. He smiled into the fire as there became audible the tired and pettishly apologising voice of Hoppo.
    “Really, Glover, I had no idea you were in front. Appleby has the fire going, I am glad to see. It is useless to deny that one result of our anxieties is something uncommonly like an appetite. I believe there is a pigeon baking. How terrible it all is. Like a dream of dreams. I wish we possessed some tea. Nothing is more refreshing. Mrs Kittery, I thought you were a tree. Dreadful. Dreadful, indeed.” And Hoppo, mildly distracted, came uncertainly into the firelight.
    “You have bad news?” Appleby poked briskly at the embers.
    “We have not found Miss Curricle. But we have found – it is