Part 30 (1/2)

”Then there was something at your window, too?”

”Something? A dozen! They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing--as though from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to play the coward.”

”Most people are brave for that reason,” she said.

The dog, who had slept under my bunk, and who had contributed to my entertainment by sighing and moaning all night, now appeared ready for business--business in his case being the operation of feeding. I presented him with a concentrated tablet, which he cautiously investigated and then rolled on.

”Nice testimonial for the people who concocted it,” I said, in disgust. ”I wish I had an egg.”

”There are some concentrated egg tablets in the shanty,” said Miss Barrison; but the idea was not attractive.

”I refuse to fry a pill for breakfast,” I said, sullenly, and set the coffee-pot on the coals.

In spite of the dewy beauty of the morning, breakfast was not a cheerful function. Professor Farrago appeared, clad in sun-helmet and khaki. I had seldom seen him depressed; but he was now, and his very efforts to disguise it only emphasized his visible anxiety.

His preparations for the day, too, had an ominous aspect to me. He gave his orders and we obeyed, instinctively suppressing questions.

First, he and I transported all personal luggage of the company to the big electric launch--Miss Barrison's effects, his, and my own. His private papers, the stenographic reports, and all memoranda were tied up together and carried aboard.

Then, to my surprise, two weeks' concentrated rations for two and mineral water sufficient for the same period were stowed away aboard the launch. Several times he asked me whether I knew how to run the boat, and I a.s.sured him that I did.

In a short time nothing was left ash.o.r.e except the bare furnis.h.i.+ngs of the cabin, the female wearing-apparel, the steel cage and chemicals which I had brought, and the twelve apple-pies--the latter under lock and key in my room.

As the preparations came to an end, the professor's gentle melancholy seemed to deepen. Once I ventured to ask him if he was indisposed, and he replied that he had never felt in better physical condition.

Presently he bade me fetch the pies; and I brought them, and, at a sign from him, placed them inside the steel cage, closing and locking the door.

”I believe,” he said, glancing from Miss Barrison to me, and from me to the dog--”I believe that we are ready to start.”

He went to the cabin and locked the door on the outside, pocketing the key.

Then he backed up to the steel cage, stooped and lifted his end as I lifted mine, and together we started off through the forest, bearing the cage between us as porters carry a heavy piece of luggage.

Miss Barrison came next, carrying the trousseau, the tank, hose, and chemicals; and the dog followed her--probably not from affection for us, but because he was afraid to be left alone.

We walked in silence, the professor and I keeping an instinctive lookout for snakes; but we encountered nothing of that sort. On every side, touching our shoulders, crowded the closely woven and impenetrable tangle of the jungle; and we threaded it along a narrow path which he, no doubt, had cut, for the machete marks were still fresh, and the blazes on hickory, live-oak, and palm were all wet with dripping sap, and swarming with eager, brilliant b.u.t.terflies.

At times across our course flowed shallow, rapid streams of water, clear as crystal, and most alluring to the thirsty.

”There's fever in every drop,” said the professor, as I mentioned my thirst; ”take the bottled water if you mean to stay a little longer.”

”Stay where?” I asked.

”On earth,” he replied, tersely; and we marched on.

The beauty of the tropics is marred somewhat for me; under all the fresh splendor of color death lurks in brilliant tints. Where painted fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron, where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined with white creeps--where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless; where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange undulates along a mossy log.

Thinking of these things, and watchful lest, unawares, terror unfold from some blossoming and leafy covert, I scarcely noticed the beauty of the glade we had entered--a long oval, cross-barred with suns.h.i.+ne which fell on hedges of scrub-palmetto, chin high, interlaced with golden blossoms of the jasmine. And all around, like pillars supporting a high green canopy above a throne, towered the silvery stems of palms fretted with pale, rose-tinted lichens and hung with draperies of grape-vine.

”This is the place,” said Professor Farrago.