Part 2 (1/2)

The girl nodded.

”By the neck,” she repeated, ”and down they went into the water. And what do you suppose happened?”

”I can't imagine,” said I with a grimace.

”Well, Grue went under, still clutching the squirming, flapping bird; and he _stayed_ under.”

”Stayed under the _water_?”

”Yes, longer than any sponge diver I ever heard of. And I was becoming frightened when the b.l.o.o.d.y bubbles and feathers began to come up--”

”_What_ was he doing under water?”

”He must have been tearing the bird to pieces. Oh, it was quite unpleasant, I a.s.sure you, Mr. Smith. And when he came up and looked at me out of those very vitreous eyes he resembled something horridly amphibious.... And I felt rather sick and dizzy.”

”He's got to stop that sort of thing!” I said angrily. ”Snake-birds are harmless and I won't have him killing them in that barbarous fas.h.i.+on.

I've warned him already to let birds alone. I don't know how he catches them or why he kills them. But he seems to have a mania for doing it--”

I was interrupted by Grue's soft and rather pleasant voice from the water's edge, announcing a sail on the horizon. He did not turn when speaking.

The next moment I made out the sail and focussed my gla.s.ses on it.

”It's Professor Kemper,” I announced presently.

”I'm so glad,” remarked Evelyn Grey.

I don't know why it should have suddenly occurred to me, apropos of nothing, that Billy Kemper was unusually handsome. Or why I should have turned and looked at the pretty waitress--except that she was, perhaps, worth gazing upon from a purely non-scientific point of view. In fact, to a man not entirely absorbed in scientific research and not pa.s.sionately and irrevocably wedded to his profession, her violet-blue eyes and rather sweet mouth might have proved disturbing.

As I was thinking about this she looked up at me and smiled.

”It's a good thing,” I thought to myself, ”that I am irrevocably wedded to my profession.” And I gazed fixedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

There was scarcely sufficient breeze of a steady character to bring Kemper to Sting-ray Key; but he got out his sweeps when I hailed him and came in at a lively clip, anchoring alongside of our boat and leaping ash.o.r.e with that unnecessary dash and abandon which women find pleasing.

Glancing sideways at my waitress through my spectacles, I found her looking into a small hand mirror and patting her hair with one slim and suntanned hand.

When Professor Kemper landed on the coral he shot a curious look at Grue, and then came striding across the reef to me.

”h.e.l.lo, Smithy!” he said, holding out his hand. ”Here I am, you see! Now what's up--”

Just then Evelyn Grey got up from her seat beside the fire; and Kemper turned and gazed at her with every symptom of unfeigned approbation.

I introduced him. Evelyn Grey seemed a trifle indifferent. A good-looking man doesn't last long with a clever woman. I smiled to myself, polis.h.i.+ng my spectacles gleefully. Yet, I had no idea why I was smiling.

We three people turned and walked toward the comb of the reef. A solitary palm represented the island's vegetation, except, of course, for the water-growing mangroves.

I asked Miss Grey to precede us and wait for us under the palm; and she went forward in that light-footed way of hers which, to any non-scientific man, might have been a trifle disturbing. It had no effect upon me. Besides, I was looking at Grue, who had gone to the fire and was evidently preparing to fry our evening meal of fish and rice. I didn't like to have him cook, but I wasn't going to do it myself; and my pretty waitress didn't know how to cook anything more complicated than beans.

We had no beans.