Роберт Чамберс - In Search of the Unknown

"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your bargain?"

"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.

Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail, pink–and–ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the incarnation of New York piquancy—a translated denizen of the metropolis—a slender spirit of the back offices of sky–scrapers. Why had I lured her hither?—here where the heavy, lavender–tinted breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune–jungles vultures soared, and snowy–headed eagles, hulking along the sands, tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.

Strange waters, strange skies—a strange, lost land aquiver under an exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child, unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.

"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.

"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows how to smile—shyly, inquiringly—with a lingering hint of laughter in the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle. "Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"

With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt–front, then, smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.

The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry. That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had no idea she was so pretty.

"I think we'll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don't you?"

"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"

A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was a pelican—and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling, goose–necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird more than a human being.

"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as our vehicle drew nearer.

He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water–turkey mastering a mullet too big for it.

His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.

He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous background of sky and ocean.

"I've come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said, reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of human architecture.

A weather–beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth—not, apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.

The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver dollar; he went back to his clam–digging, and I entered the carriage and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.

"If you don't mind I'll read my instructions," I said, in high good–humor.

"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.

So I opened the little packet and read:

"Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.

"FARRAGO."

Rather disappointed—for I had been expecting to find in the packet some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago into the Everglades—I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed: ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay, sparkleberry, and live–oak, with here and there a weather–twisted palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus and Spanish–bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the vultures, sailing, sailing—some mere circling motes lost in the blue above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping shadows slanted continually across our road.

"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.

"I thought they were crows," she confessed.

"Carrion–crows—yes.

"'The carrion–crows

Sing, Caw! caw!'

—only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good–humor once more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.

"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said, innocently.

"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.

"Is Professor Farrago—amusing?" she asked.

"Well—oh, certainly—but not in—in the way I am."

Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of what I had done scared me silent.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison.

"No—not yet," I said, ominously.

How on earth could I have overlooked that well–known fact. The hurry and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had clean driven it from my absent–minded head.

Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured the astonished rage of my superior—my probable dismissal from employment—perhaps the general overturning and smash–up of the entire expedition.

A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their labor.

I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun–helmet and khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up, I stepped out and hailed him by name.

"Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me.

"My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer. "I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."

He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my credentials.

His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a bit," he said, cordially—then hesitated, glancing at Miss Barrison—"if your wife would excuse us—"

The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan right—which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.

"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young girl into the Everglades, do you?"

"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.

Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of sun–warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.

"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or just what you are expected to do."

"No, I don't," I said.

"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."

"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.

"That is so, Mr. Gilland."

"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you fled five hundred miles?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know what you ran away from?"