Complete weird tales of.., p.1246
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1246
“I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a dead right whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last summer.”
“I think I did,” said I with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned the air for miles around.
“But,” I continued, “suppose it comes in the night?”
He laughed.
“There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its stranding indefinitely, too, but I don’t care to take those chances. That is why I have stationed you here, Dick, my boy.”
He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.
“There is another question I want to ask,” I said, “if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not!” he said warmly.
“What are you digging for?”
“Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don’t know a better exercise. Do you?”
“I suppose not,” I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered whether he’d mention fossils.
“Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché Thermosaurus?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains of the Thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive the skin of the carcass that I am expecting.”
We had started toward home, walking slowly across the darkening dunes, shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not easy.
“I wish,” said I at last, “that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not to walk on the beach. It’s much less fatiguing.”
“That,” said the professor, “is a matter that I intend to discuss with you to-night.” He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that something of unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I kept very quiet, watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes.
IV.
Dinner was ended. Daisy Holroyd lighted her father’s pipe for him, and insisted on my smoking as much as I pleased. Then she sat down, and folded her hands like a good little girl, waiting for her father to make the revelation which I felt in my bones must he something out of the ordinary.
The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his daughter; then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:
“Have you ever heard of the kree — that Australian bird, half parrot, half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?”
I nodded.
“The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached. You know that? Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric prototypes. These birds were enormous creatures, who preyed upon mammoths and mastodons, and even upon the great saurians. It has been conclusively proved that a few saurians have been killed by the ancestors of the kree, but the favourite food of these birds was undoubtedly the Thermosaurus. It is believed that the birds attacked the eyes of the Thermosaurus, and when, as was its habit, the mammoth creature turned on its back to claw them, they fell upon the thinner scales of its stomach armour and finally killed it. This, of course, is a theory, but we have almost absolute proofs of its correctness. Now, these two birds are known among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the ool-yllik. The names are Australian, in which country most of their remains have been unearthed. They lived during the Carboniferous period. Now it is not generally known, but the fact is, that in 1801 Captain Ransom, of the British exploring vessel Gull, purchased from the natives of Tasmania the skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have been killed more than twenty-four hours previous to its sale. I saw this skin in the British Museum. It was labelled “unknown bird, probably extinct.” It took me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it was actually the skin of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick, my boy,” continued the professor excitedly. “In 1854, Admiral Stuart, of our own navy, saw the carcass of a strange gigantic bird floating along the southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and, before a boat could be lowered, these miserable fish got it. But the good old admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw them. They were not even labelled, but I knew that they were feathers from the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.”
I had grown so interested that I had leaned far across the table. Daisy, too, bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a moment that I noticed how close together our heads were — Daisy’s and mine. I don’t think she realized it. She did not move.
“Now comes the important part of this long discourse,” said the professor, smiling at our eagerness. “Ever since the carcass of our derelict Thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it has also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the neighbourhood. These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be hovering over the carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they disappeared. Even in midocean they were observed. When I heard about it I was puzzled. A month later I was satisfied that neither the ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was right. I found forty-eight distinct impressions of the huge seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You may imagine my excitement. I succeeded in digging up enough wet sand around one of these impressions to preserve its form. I managed to get it into a soap box, and now it is there in my shop. The tide rose too rapidly for me to save the other footprints.”
I shuddered at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part obliterating the impression of an ool-yllik.
“That is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,” he said mildly.
“Hanging would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such priceless prizes!” I cried out in self-reproach.
Daisy Holroyd turned a flushed face to mine, and impulsively laid her hand on my sleeve.
“How could you know?” she said.
“It’s all right now,” said her father, emphasizing each word with a gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table edge; don’t be hard on yourself, Dick, my boy. You’ll do yeoman’s service yet.”
It was nearly midnight, and still we chatted on about the Thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird, and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the probability of the great reptile’s carcass being in the vicinity. That alone seemed to explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at Pine Inlet.
“Do they ever attack human beings?” I asked.
The professor looked startled.
“Gracious!” he exclaimed, “I never thought of that. And Daisy running about out of doors! Dear me! it takes a scientist to be an unnatural parent!”
His alarm was half real, half assumed; but all the same, he glanced gravely at us both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought, Daisy herself looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were distinctly queer.
“It is true,” said the professor, frowning at the wall, “that human remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird — I don’t know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most serious consideration.”
“The problem can be solved,” said I, “in several ways. One is, to keep Miss Holroyd in the house — —”
“I shall not stay in!” cried Daisy indignantly.
We all laughed, and her father assured her that she should not be abused.
“Even if I did stay in,” she said, “one of these birds might alight on Master Dick.”
She looked saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her father observed quietly, “You don’t seem to think of me, Daisy.”
“Of course I do,” she said, getting up and putting both arms around her father’s neck; “but Dick — as — as you call him — is so helpless and timid.”
My blissful smile froze on my lips.
“Timid!” I repeated.
She came back to the table, making me a mocking reverence.
“Do you think I am to be laughed at with impunity?” she said.
“What are your other plans, Dick, my boy?” asked the professor.— “Daisy, let him alone, you little tease!”
“One is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,” I said. “If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they seem disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be safe.”
“Why, that is really brilliant!” cried Daisy.
“Be quiet, my child! Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and perfectly practical. McPeek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of boilers to-morrow.”
“It will spoil the beauty of the landscape,” said Daisy, with a taunting nod to me.
“And Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,” I added, laughing.
“That,” said Daisy, “I shall prevent, even at the cost of my life.” And she stood up, looking very determined.
“Children, children,” protested the professor, “go to bed — you bother me.”
Then I turned deliberately to Miss Holroyd.
“Good-night, Daisy,” I said.
“Good-night, Dick,” she said, very gently.
V.
The week passed quickly for me, leaving but few definite impressions. As I look back to it now I can see the long stretch of beach burning in the fierce sunlight, the endless meadows, with the glimmer of water in the distance, the dunes, the twisted cedars, the leagues of scintillating ocean, rocking, rocking, always rocking. In the starlit nights the curlew came in from the sand-bars by twos and threes; I could hear their faint call as I lay in bed thinking. All day long the little ring-necks whistled from the shore. The plover answered them from distant lonely inland pools. The great white gulls drifted like feathers upon the sea.
One morning, toward the end of the week, I, strolling along the dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.
“This,” said I, “must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?”
He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side, considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our big boilers.
“Don’t like the colour?” he asked. “It goes well on them boilers.”
“Colour! No, I don’t like the colour either. Can’t you understand that there are some people in the world who object to seeing patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?”
“Hey?” he said perplexed.
“Will you kindly remove that advertisement?” I persisted.
“Too late,” said Frisby; “it’s sot.”
I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow and red posters, extolling the “Eureka Liver Pill Company.”
“It don’t cost ’em nothin’,” said Frisby cheerfully; “I done it fur the fun of it. Purty, ain’t it?”
“They are Professor Holroyd’s boilers,” I said, subduing a desire to beat Frisby with my telescope. “Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this work.”
“Don’t she like yeller and red?” he demanded anxiously.
“You’ll find out,” said I.
Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a moment he mechanically spat on a clamshell and requested Davy to “sic” it.
“Can’t you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the landscape?” I asked more mildly.
“I’ve got some green bills,” said Frisby; “I kin stick ’em over the yeller ones — —”
“Confound it!” said I, “it isn’t the colour!”
“Then,” observed Frisby, “you don’t like them pills. I’ve got some bills of the e Cropper Bicycle,’ and a few of ‘Bagley, the Gents Tailor — —”
“Frisby,” said I, “use them all — paste the whole collection over your dog and yourself — then walk off the cliff.”
He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste, laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him muttering.
Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work, and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with sand, soap, and a scrubbing brush. Then I walked on to my post of observation.
I watched until sunset. Daisy came with her father to hear my report, but there was nothing to tell, and we three walked slowly back to the house.
In the evenings the professor worked on his volumes, the click of his type-writer sounding faintly behind his closed door. Daisy and I played chess sometimes; sometimes we played hearts. I don’t remember that we ever finished a game of either — we talked too much.
Our discussions covered every topic of interest: we argued upon politics; we skimmed over literature and music; we settled international differences; we spoke vaguely of human brotherhood. I say we slighted no subject of interest — I am wrong; we never spoke of love.
Now, love is a matter of interest to ten people out of ten. Why it was that it did not appear to interest us is as interesting a question as love itself. We were young, alert, enthusiastic, inquiring. We eagerly absorbed theories concerning any curious phenomena in Nature, as intellectual cocktails to stimulate discussion. And yet we did not discuss love. I do not say that we avoided it. No; the subject was too completely ignored for even that. And yet we found it very difficult to pass an hour separated. The professor noticed this, and laughed at us. We were not even embarrassed.
Sunday passed in pious contemplation of the ocean. Daisy read a little in her prayer-book, and the professor threw a cloth over his typewriter and strolled up and down the sands. He may have been lost in devout abstraction; he may have been looking for footprints. As for me, my mind was very serene, and I was more than happy. Daisy read to me a little for my soul’s sake, and the professor came up and said something cheerful. He also examined the magazine of my Winchester.
That night, too, Daisy took her guitar to the sands and sang one or two Armenian hymns. Unlike us, the Armenians do not take their pleasures sadly. One of their pleasures is evidently religion.
The big moon came up over the dunes and stared at the sea until the surface of every wave trembled with radiance. A sudden stillness fell across the world; the wind died out; the foam ran noiselessly across the beach; the cricket’s rune was stilled.
I leaned back, dropping one hand upon the sand. It touched another hand, soft and cool.
After a while the other hand moved slightly, and I found that my own had closed above it. Presently one finger stirred a little — only a little — for our fingers were interlocked.
On the shore the foam-froth bubbled and winked and glimmered in the moonlight. A star fell from the zenith, showering the night with incandescent dust.
If our fingers lay interlaced beside us, her eyes were calm and serene as always, wide open, fixed upon the depths of a dark sky. And when her father rose and spoke to us, she did not withdraw her hand.
“Is it late?” she asked dreamily.
“It is midnight, little daughter.”
I stood up, still holding her hand, and aided her to rise. And when, at the door, I said good-night, she turned and looked at me for a little while in silence, then passed into her room slowly, with head still turned toward me.
All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea wind blowing into the open window.
“She is asleep,” I thought, and I leaned from the window and peered out into the east.
The sea called to me, tossing its thousand arms; the soaring gulls, dipping, rising, wheeling above the sand-bar, screamed and clamoured for a playmate. I slipped into my bathing suit, dropped from the window upon the soft sand, and in a moment had plunged head foremost into the surf, swimming beneath the waves toward the open sea.
Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears a low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels atrail with seaweed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water, hands raised, and the clamour of the gulls filled my ears.
As I lay, breathing fast, drifting on the sea, far out beyond the gulls I saw a flash of white, and an arm was lifted, signalling me.
“Daisy!” I called.
A clear hail came across the water, distinct on the sea wind, and at the same instant we raised our hands and moved toward each other.
How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.
And with the dawn came the wind — a great sea wind, fresh, aromatic, that hurled our voices back into our throats and lifted the sheeted spray above our heads. Every wave, crowned with mist, caught us in a cool embrace, cradled us, and slipped away, only to leave us to another wave, higher, stronger, crested with opalescent glory, breathing incense.
We turned together up the coast, swimming lightly side by side, but our words were caught up by the winds and whirled into the sky.
We looked up at the driving clouds; we looked out upon the pallid waste of waters; but it was into each other’s eyes we looked, wondering, wistful, questioning the reason of sky and sea. And there in each other’s eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky and sea were created for us alone.
Drifting on by distant sands and dunes, her white fingers touching mine, we spoke, keying our tones to the wind’s vast harmony. And we spoke of love.
