Part 3 (1/2)
”Don't go on--please don't!” he implored. ”I can't stand it--I really can't! Incipient verse-mania is too much for me. Forest-empress, sea-G.o.ddess, sun-angel--by Jove! what next? You are evidently in a very bad way. If I remember rightly, you had a flask of that old green Chartreuse with you. Ah! that accounts for it! Nice stuff, but a little too strong.”
Errington laughed, and, unabashed by his friend's raillery, proceeded to relate with much vivacity and graphic fervor the occurrences of the morning. Lorimer listened patiently with a forbearing smile on his open, ruddy countenance. When he had heard everything he looked up and inquired calmly--
”This is not a yarn, is it?”
”A yarn!” exclaimed Philip. ”Do you think I would invent such a thing?”
”Can't say,” returned Lorimer imperturbably. ”You are quite capable of it. It's a very creditable crammer, due to Chartreuse. Might have been designed by Victor Hugo; it's in his style. Scene, Norway--midnight.
Mysterious maiden steals out of a cave and glides away in a boat over the water; man, the hero, goes into cave, finds a stone coffin, says--'Qu'est-ce que c'est? Dieu! C'est la mort!' Spectacle affreux!
Staggers back perspiring; meets mad dwarf with torch; mad dwarf talks a good deal--mad people always do,--then yells and runs away. Man comes out of cave and--and--goes home to astonish his friends; one of them won't be astonished,--that's me!”
”I don't care,” said Errington. ”It's a true story for all that. Only, I say, don't talk of it before the others; let's keep our own counsel--”
”No poachers allowed on the Sun-Angel Manor!” interrupted Lorimer gravely. Philip went on without heeding him.
”I'll question Valdemar Svensen after breakfast. He knows everybody about here. Come and have a smoke on deck when I give you the sign, and we'll cross-examine him.”
Lorimer still looked incredulous. ”What's the good of it?” he inquired languidly. ”Even if it's all true you had much better leave this G.o.ddess, or whatever you call her, alone, especially if she has any mad connections. What do _you_ want with her?”
”Nothing!” declared Errington, though hiss color heightened. ”Nothing, I a.s.sure you! It's just a matter of curiosity with me. I should like to know who she is--that's all! The affair won't go any further.”
”How do you know?” and Lorimer began to brush his stiff curly hair with a sort of vicious vigor. ”How can you tell? I'm not a spiritualist, nor any sort of a humbug at all, I hope, but I sometimes indulge in presentiments. Before we started on this cruise, I was haunted by that dismal old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens--”
'The King's daughter of Norroway 'Tis thou maun bring her hame!'
”And here you have found her, or so it appears. What's to come of it, I wonder?”
”Nothing's to come of it; nothing _will_ come of it!” laughed Philip.
”As I told you, she said she was a peasant. There's the breakfast-bell!
Make haste, old boy, I'm as hungry as a hunter!”
And he left his friend to finish dressing, and entered the saloon, where he greeted his two other companions, Alec, or, as he was oftener called, Sandy Macfarlane, and Pierre Duprez; the former an Oxford student,--the latter a young fellow whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and with whom he had kept up a constant and friendly intercourse. A greater contrast than these two presented could scarcely be imagined. Macfarlane was tall and ungainly, with large loose joints that seemed to protrude angularly out of him in every direction,--Duprez was short, slight and wiry, with a dapper and by no means ungraceful figure. The one had formal _gauche_ manners, a never-to-be-eradicated Glasgow accent, and a slow, infinitely tedious method of expressing himself,--the other was full of restless movement and pantomimic gesture, and being proud of his English, plunged into that language recklessly, making it curiously light and flippant, though picturesque, as he went. Macfarlane was destined to become a s.h.i.+ning light of the established Church of Scotland, and therefore took life very seriously,--Duprez was the spoilt only child of an eminent French banker, and had very little to do but enjoy himself, and that he did most thoroughly, without any calculation or care for the future. On all points of taste and opinion they differed widely; but there was no doubt about their both being good-hearted fellows, without any affectation of abnormal vice or virtue.
”So you did not climb Jedke after all!” remarked Errington laughingly, as they seated themselves at the breakfast table.
”My friend, what would you!” cried Duprez. ”I have not said that I will climb it; no! I never say that I will do anything, because I'm not sure of myself. How can I be? It is that _cher enfant_, Lorimer, that said such brave words! See! . . . we arrive; we behold the sh.o.r.e--all black, great, vast! . . . rocks like needles, and, higher than all, this most fierce Jedke--bah! what a name!--straight as the spire of a cathedral.
One must be a fly to crawl up it, and we, we are not flies--_ma foi_!
no! Lorimer, he laugh, he yawn--so! He say, 'not for me to-day; I very much thank you!' And then, we watch the sun. Ah! that was grand, glorious, beautiful!” And Duprez kissed the tips of his fingers in ecstacy.
”What did _you_ think about it, Sandy?” asked Sir Philip.
”I didna think much,” responded Macfarlane, shortly. ”It's no sae grand a sight as a sunset in Skye. And it's an uncanny business to see the sun losin' a' his poonctooality, and remainin' stock still, as it were, when it's his plain duty to set below the horizon. Mysel', I think it's been fair over-rated. It's unnatural an' oot o' the common, say what ye like.”
”Of course it is,” agreed Lorimer, who just then sauntered in from his cabin. ”Nature _is_ most unnatural. I always thought so. Tea for me, Phil, please; coffee wakes me up too suddenly. I say, what's the programme to-day?”
”Fis.h.i.+ng in the Alten,” answered Errington promptly.
”That suits me perfectly,” said Lorimer, as he leisurely sipped his tea.
”I'm an excellent fisher. I hold the line and generally forget to bait it. Then,--while it trails harmlessly in the water, I doze; thus both the fish and I are happy.”