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In Search of the Unknown, a novel by Robert W. Chambers |
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Chapter 3 |
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_ CHAPTER III Towards sunset I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birds were whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling in double-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands below the rock. Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this, I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came from Halyard's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from seeing the house itself. I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and cautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-way towards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, when something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention--a man darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf--or, at least, it seemed to--but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all. However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and make my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Of course, there was nothing there--not a trace of a human being, I mean. Something _had_ been there--a sea-otter, possibly--for the remains of a freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone and tail. The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim, flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with the splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in the noble, gray monotony of headland and sea. The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that led to the front porch of the house. There were two people on the porch--I heard their voices before I saw them--and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them, a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me. "Come back!" cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply lined face, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped back quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination. The man, who was reclining in an invalid's rolling-chair, clapped both large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the porch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat on his head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled. "I know who you are," he said, in his acid voice; "you're one of the Zoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway." "It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied, irritated at his discourtesy. "Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'm obliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?" "Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied, sincerely. "Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you've interrupted us." Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neat gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she had been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which made the old man sneer again. "It happened so suddenly," she said, in her low voice, "that I had no chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in the stern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be sea-weed--and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float." Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in grim displeasure. "Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded. "No--not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a few moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the beach, I was horribly frightened." "Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then, turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to row all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take her boat in." Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the least comprehending what all this meant. "That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse. She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping noiselessly into the house. "I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an unamiable glance. "I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, but I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like." "You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted. "Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for my irritability; it's a bargain between us." "In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interests me. I came to see those auks." "You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said, contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks." I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied, indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was free to step around the house when I cared to. I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to a penguin in that pen. I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge of a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming. For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realize that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct race--the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years, has been accounted an extinct creature. I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight. Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listened to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of the female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast; I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing for slumber. "If you please," came a soft voice from the door, "Mr. Halyard awaits your company to dinner." _ |
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