Part 15 (1/2)
Then I let my eyes rest on the tinted east, marvelling at what a curiously beautiful, dangerously sweet old world this is. The sky and water were beginning to be touched by the first faint tones of rose, the dawn was bringing its enchantment to this marriage-time of the black and white. Over in the Key West barracks a bugler would soon be blowing reveille; down in the sleeping town stumpy little street cars would squeak from their sheds and clang their discordant gongs through the narrow thoroughfares. But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things.
Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on padded foot and silent wing!
Gates had hoisted even the topmast- and maintopmast-staysails, but these did not help much; and when Tommy and Monsieur appeared half an hour later they were in wretched humors at the way matters stood. The only slight hope we nursed had been one cry of ”Sail-ho!” from the mate, but he could not tell what kind of a craft had rested on his lens, because she was almost at once swallowed by the distant bank of mist. At last, with a squint into the southwest, Gates prophesied that something worth while would be coming before long, and with this crumb of comfort, seasoned by his promise to call if anything appeared, we half-heartedly went down to breakfast.
Healthy man is ever cheered by breakfast, especially if Pete has prepared it, and gradually our departed spirits came lumbering back. I remembered Tommy's promise of the night before to mutilate my countenance on certain conditions, and began to laugh. Then he laughed, doubtless because I had, and pretty soon Monsieur showed signs of warming up.
”This is what my boy Tommy would call hot-stuffie, eh?” he cried. ”To be chasing a scoundrel who has kidnaped a Princess is fun, you think so?”
”And such a princess,” Tommy rapturously exclaimed. ”Eyes more deep than the mysteries of twilight shadows in a woodland pool!--oval cheeks more damask than the rose which steals its fragrance from her hair!--lips whose Cupid's bow----”
”Here,” I good-naturedly protested. ”Don't make her so wonderful! You won't have an adjective left for the beautiful Bluegra.s.s flower!”
”But isn't she wonderful?--I challenge you, isn't she perfect?”
”That is a perilous a.s.sertion,” Monsieur chuckled, ”since there is a Persian proverb that 'to be perfect is to be d.a.m.ned.'”
”Well, she'd rather be d.a.m.ned than ugly, if I know anything about girls--and I do!” Tommy declared. ”Isn't that right, gezabo?”
”Isn't what right? That you know so much about girls? Bah! It is a young rooster's foolish talk! Woman, my boy, is as the law of gravity--difficult to understand, and I may add difficult to disobey.
But to comprehend her she must first be stripped----”
”Why, you wicked old thing,” Tommy, in mock astonishment, gasped at him.
”You do not let me finish,” he blus.h.i.+ngly protested. ”What I mean is stripped of her inexplicable----”
”Oh, come off,” his tormentor burst out laughing. ”That's as transparent as a girl buying cigarettes for her brother! I didn't know you were so curious.”
”Please--you shame me! I am curious of nothing, and you will someday learn that curiosity is the root of tragedy.”
”There's an epigram worthy of you: 'Curiosity is the root of tragedy'--and the blossom of delight!”
”I said nothing of delight,” the professor blushed. ”I said tragedy!
And--ah, I see! You are cut-upping! I will not talk. Your conscience should hurt you!”
”Not conscience, old fellow! The wages of conscience is _ennui_, and the G.o.ds know how I hate that. Give me your epigrams on delight and love, and the Princess of Azuria!”
”Love! Bah!” Monsieur now stormed in disgust. ”A mythical invention of diseased minds to explain away our follies!”
”Wait till she hears that,” Tommy warned, ”and your head's as good as in the sawdust. I hope to heaven she makes me her lord high executioner, and darned if I don't lop it off with a single whack!”
”And I hope you have a chance to tell her, so smart!”
”I'll have a chance, all right, never you fear. I'm the only one who will, for after you're disposed of, and Jack has gone moony, this expedition will need a clear thinker. There's where your uncle Tom comes in.”
”He understands himself so well,” the professor indulgently smiled.
”It requires no concentration, really,” I murmured.