Elizabeth saw Craig Soaras studying Peter Hubbard out of the corner of his sharp eye. For her the difference between the two men was the dramatic difference between Yarkie and Cambridge—“Cambridge” being the whole outside world. Craig was content with the sea, which held its own complexities and challenges. Peter was content with nothing, because the truths he sought could never be final. If Craig hooked a fish, it was there on his line. If he steered a boat through a gale, it was there safely tied up at the pier. But that wasn’t so with the scientists like Peter Hubbard and her father. Every answer Peter caught taunted him with new questions—some of them very terrible and urgent to Yarkie right now, as her grandfather, putting down his cup, was about to inform all of them.

As the captain described his and Craig Soaras’ experience, the mood of the group turned increasingly somber. Johnson spared no words, and now he did not hesitate to have everyone hear the news Russell Homer had brought that morning about rats going crazy at the village dump.

Peter Hubbard listened intently. When Elias Johnson emphasized the phenomenon of the blind eye sockets, the biologist’s head came up thoughtfully.

Amos Tarbell and Ben Dorset were listening with their own newly sharpened suspicions. Craig Soaras kept nodding numbly at Johnson’s recital. He still had difficulty believing what he was hearing, even though he had been attacked by one of the crazed rats himself.

Bonnie Taylor could not sit still. She left her chair to stand at the Johnson fireplace, gripping the mantel. Her premonition that she had lost Sharky to some terrible fate was turning out to be too atrociously true, though no one fully understood what had taken place. Her own lingering guilt was not diminished by the obvious fact that something extraordinary—for which she could in no way be blamed—was afoot on Yarkie Island.

Like Bonnie Taylor, Russell Homer could not shake the sense of responsibility he had carried since the morning. It did not help that he was hearing now of other harrowing incidents. Maybe he had concentrated too much poison in one place, shorted another. He hung his head. Maybe the Harvard man would find he was indeed accountable and denounce him to the whole island. All his hopes would be smashed.

Reed Brockshaw was listening with his own horror. Just hours before he had allowed his children to wander among the trees. The blood on Kim’s finger—what if it had not been a thorn! What if the “shell” had been the nose of one of the sick rats Elias Johnson was describing! Lucky he had found Kim in time! The man was ashen beneath his sunburned skin.