скачать книгу бесплатно
This effusion she pinned to her pillow, then rang for the steward and ordered the canoe to be brought alongside, provisioned for a three days' shooting trip.
So open, frank, and guileless were her orders that nobody who took them suspected anything unusual; and in the full heat and glare of the afternoon siesta, when parents, fiancé, and assorted guests were all asleep and in full process of digestion and the crew of the Chihuahua was drowsing from stem to stern, a brace of sailors innocently connived at her escape, aided her into the canoe, and, doubting nothing, watched her paddle away through the inlet, and into the distant lagoon, which lay sparkling in golden and turquoise tints, set with palms like a stupid picture in a child's geography.
Later, the Chihuahua fired a frantic gun. Later still, two boats left the yacht, commanded respectively by one angry parent and one fiancé, profoundly bored.
IV
When Miss Cassillis heard the gun, it sounded very far away. But it irritated as well as scared her. She pushed the canoe energetically through a screen of foliage overhanging the bank of the lagoon, it being merely her immediate instinct to hide herself.
To her surprise and pleasure, she discovered herself in a narrow, deep lead, which had been entirely concealed by the leaves, and which wound away through an illimitable vista of reeds, widening as she paddled forward, until it seemed like a glassy river bordered by live-oak, water-oak, pine, and palmetto, curving out into a flat and endless land of forests.
Here was liberty at last! No pursuit need now be feared, for the entrance to this paradise which she had forced by a chance impulse could never be suspected by parent or fiancé.
A little breeze blew her hair and loosened it; silently her paddle dipped, swept astern in a swirl of bubbles, flashed dripping, and dipped again.
Ahead of her a snake-bird slipped from a dead branch into the water; a cormorant perched on the whitened skeleton of a mango, made hideous efforts to swallow a mullet before her approach disorganized his manœuvres.
So silently the canoe stole along that the fat alligators, dozing in the saw-grass, dozed on until she stirred them purposely with a low tap of her paddle against the thwarts; then they rose, great lumbering bodies propped high on squatty legs, waddled swiftly to the bank's edge, and slid headlong into the water.
Everywhere dragon-flies glittered over the saw-grass; wild ducks with golden eyes and heads like balls of brown plush swam leisurely out of the way; a few mallard, pretending to be frightened, splashed and clattered into flight, the sunlight jewelling the emerald heads of the drakes.
"Wonderful, wonderful," her heart was singing to itself, while her enchanted eyes missed nothing – neither the feebly flying and strangely shaped, velvety black butterflies, the narrow wings of which were striped with violent yellow; nor the metallic blue and crestless jays that sat on saplings, watching her; nor the pelicans fishing with nature's orange and iridescent net in the shallows; nor the tall, slate-blue birds that marched in dignified retreat through the sedge, picking up their stilt-like legs with the precision of German foot-soldiers on parade.
These and other phenomena made her drop her paddle at intervals and clap her hands softly in an ecstasy beyond mere exclamation. How restfully green was the world; how limpid the water; how royally blue the heavens! Listening, she could hear the soft stirring of palmetto fronds in the forests; the celestial song of a little bird that sat on a sparkle-berry bush, its delicate long-curved bill tilted skyward. Then the deep note of splendour flashed across the scheme of sound and colour as a crimson cardinal alighted near her, crest erect.
But more wonderful than all was that at last, after eighteen years, she was utterly alone; and liberty was showering its inestimable gifts upon her in breathless prodigality – liberty to see with her own eyes and judge with her own senses; liberty to linger capriciously amid mental fancies, to move on impulsively to others; liberty to reflect unurged and unrestricted; liberty to choose, to reject, to ignore.
Now and then a brilliant swimming snake filled her with interest and curiosity. Once, on a flat, low bush, she saw a dull, heavy, blunt-bodied serpent lying asleep in the sun like an old and swollen section of rubber hose. But when she ventured to touch the bush with her paddle, the snake reared high and yawned at her with jaws which seemed to be lined in white satin. Which fortunately made her uneasy, and she meddled no more with the Little Death of the southern swamps.
She was now passing very close to the edge of the "hammock," where palmettos overhung the water; and as the cool, dim woodlands seemed to invite her, she looked about her leisurely for an agreeable landing place. There were plenty to choose from; and she selected a little sandy point under a red cedar tree, drove her canoe upon it, and calmly stepped ashore. And found herself looking into the countenance of Jones.
For a full minute they inspected each other, apparently bereft of the power of speech.
She said, finally: "About a year ago last February, did you happen to walk down Fifth Avenue – very busily? Did you?"
It took him an appreciable time to concentrate for mental retrospection.
"Yes," he said, "I did."
"You were going down town, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"On business?"
"Yes," he said, bewildered.
"I wonder," she said timidly, "if you would tell me what that business was? Do you mind? Because, really, I don't mean to be impertinent."
He made an effort to reflect. It was difficult to reflect and to keep his eyes on her but also it is impolite to converse with anybody and look elsewhere. This he had been taught at his mother's knee – and sometimes over it.
"My business down town," he said very slowly, "was with an officer of the Smithsonian Institution who had come on from Washington to see something which I had brought with me from Florida."
"Would you mind telling me what it was you brought with you from Florida?" she asked wistfully.
"No. It was malaria."
"What!"
"It was malaria," he repeated politely.
"I – I don't see how you could – could show it to him," she murmured, perplexed.
"Well, I'll tell you how I showed it to him. I made a little incision in my skin with a lancet; he made a smear or two – "
"A – what?"
"A smear – he put a few drops of my blood on some glass plates."
"Why?"
"To examine them under the microscope."
"Why?"
"So that he might determine what particular kind of malaria I had brought back with me."
"Did he find out?" she asked, deeply interested.
"Yes," said Jones, displaying mild symptoms of enthusiasm, "he discovered that I was fairly swarming with a perfectly new and undescribed species of bacillus. That bacillus," he added, with modest diffidence, "is now named after me."
She looked at him very earnestly, dropped her blue eyes, raised them again after a moment:
"It must be – pleasant – to give one's name to a bacillus."
"It is an agreeable and exciting privilege. When I look into the culture tubes I feel an intimate relationship with those bacilli which I have never felt for any human being."
"You – you are a – " she hesitated, with a slight but charming colour in her cheeks, "a naturalist, I presume?" And she added hastily, "No doubt you are a famous one, and my question must sound ignorant and absurd to you. But as I do not know your name – "
"It is Jones," he said gloomily, " – and I am not famous."
"Mine is Cecil Cassillis; and neither am I," she said. "But I thought when naturalists gave their names to butterflies and microbes that everything concerned immediately became celebrated."
Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive.
"No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth, names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are Immortals made."
She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar were named after her father.
"Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more wonderful, isn't it?"
"Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no such thing as absolute freedom."
"You have all the freedom you desire, haven't you?"
"Well – I enjoy the only approach to absolute liberty I ever heard of."
"What kind of liberty is that?"
"Freedom to think as I please, no matter what I'm obliged to do."
"But you do what you please, too, don't you?"
"Oh, no!" he said smiling. "The man was never born who did what he pleased."
"Why not? You choose your own work, don't you?"
"Yes. But once the liberty of choice is exercised, freedom ends. I choose my profession. There my liberty ends, because instantly I am enslaved by the conditions which make my choice a profession."
She was deeply interested. A mossy log lay near them; she seated herself to listen, her elbow on her knee, and her chin cupped in her hand. But Jones became silent.
"Were you not in that funny little boat that passed the inlet about three hours ago?" she asked.
"The Orange Puppy? Yes."
"What an odd name for a boat – the Orange Puppy!"
"An orange puppy," he explained, "is the name given in the Florida orange groves to the caterpillar of a large swallow-tail butterfly, which feeds on orange leaves. The butterfly it turns into is known to entomologists as Papilio cresphontes and Papilio thoas. The latter is a misnomer."
She gazed upon this young man in undisguised admiration.
"Once," she said, "when I was nine years old, I ran away from a governess and two trained nurses. They found me with both hands full of muddy pollywogs. It has nothing to do with what you are saying, but I thought I'd tell you."
He insisted that the episode she recalled was most interesting and unusual, considered purely as a human document.
"Would you tell me what you are doing down here in these forests?" she asked, " – as we are discussing human documents."
"Yes," he said. "I am investigating several thousand small caterpillars which are feeding on the scrub-palmetto."
"Is that your business?"
"Exactly. If you will remain very still for a moment and listen very intently you can hear the noise which these caterpillars make while they are eating."
She thought of the Chihuahua, and it occurred to her that she had rather tired of seeing things eat. However, except in Europe, she had never heard things eat. So she listened.
He said: "These caterpillars are in their third moult – that is, they have changed their skin three times since emerging from the egg – and are now busily chewing the immature fruit of the scrub-palmetto. You can hear them very plainly."
She sat silent, spellbound; and presently in the woodland stillness, all around her she heard the delicate and continuous sound – the steady, sustained noise of thousands of tiny jaws, all crunching, all busily working together. And when she realized what the elfin rustle really meant, she turned her delighted and grateful eyes on Jones. And the beauty of them made him exceedingly thoughtful.
"Will you explain to me," she whispered, "why you are studying these caterpillars, Mr. Jones?"
"Because they are spreading out over the forests. Until recently this particular species of caterpillar, and the pretty little moth into which it ultimately turns, were entirely confined to a narrow strip of jungle, only a few miles long, lying on the Halifax River. Nowhere else in all the world could these little creatures be found. But recently they have been reported from the Dead Lake country. So the Smithsonian Institution sent me down here to study them, and find out whither they were spreading, and whether any natural parasitic enemies had yet appeared to check them."
She gazed at him, fascinated.
"Have any appeared?" she asked, under her breath.
"I have not yet found a single creature that preys upon them."
"Isn't it a very arduous and difficult task to watch these thousands of little caterpillars all day long?"
"It is quite impossible for me to do it thoroughly all alone."
"Would you like to have me help you?" she asked innocently.
Which rather bowled him over, but he said:
"I'd b-b-be d-d-delighted – only you haven't time, have you?"
"I have three days. I've brought a tent, you see, and everything necessary – rugs, magazines, blankets, toilet articles, bon-bons, books – everything, in fact, to last three days… I wonder how that tent is put up. Do you know?"
He went over to the canoe and gazed at the tent.
"I think I could pitch it for you," he said.
"Oh, thanks so much! May I help you? I think I'll put it here on this pretty stretch of white sand by the water's edge."
"I'm afraid that wouldn't do," he said, gravely.
"Why?"
"Because the lagoon is tidal. You'd be awash sooner or later."
"I see. Well, then, anywhere in the woods will do – "
"Not anywhere," he said, smiling. "High water leaves few dry places in this forest; in fact – I'm afraid that my shack is perched on the only spot which is absolutely dry at all times. It is a shell mound – the only one in the Dead Lake region."
"Isn't there room for my tent beside yours?" she asked, a trifle anxiously.
"Y-es," he said, in a voice as matter of fact as her own. "How many will there be in your party?"
"In my party! Why, only myself," she said, with smiling animation.
"Oh, I see!" But he didn't.
They lugged the tent back among the trees to the low shell mound, where in the centre of a ring of pines and evergreen oaks his open-faced shack stood, thatched with palmetto fans. She gazed upon the wash drying on the line, upon a brace of dead ducks hanging from the eaves, upon the smoky kettle and the ashes of the fire. Purest delight sparkled in her blue eyes.
Erecting her silk tent with practiced hands, he said carelessly:
