第 9 页

"Did you," said the Man with the Sunburnt Legs, " in the course of your wanderings find a place where they sold corn-whisky? Oh, you're snoring already, are you? Well, I hope it's merely drunk you are, my son, because otherwise you've come back very dotty. What rot, to go and live like a hermit all by your lonesome self."

III

Miss Wilcoxn was a young woman with a great notion of having her own way. Had I known her less, I should have tried to avoid speaking on a matter which I preferred to keep silence upon. Being acquainted as we were, I did not bring out any futile stubbornness.

She wanted to know what there was to be seen in the lagoons and lakes, and I told her, with one reservation; but my tale did not quite hold water, and she twigged that there was something left out, and demanded to hear what it was. Where upon I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, and told her about Atcheson, chapter, commas, and verse, merely lying in the solitary instance of a personal name.

"You say that he is a Christ Church man?" she demanded, when I had finished.-

"Did I say so?"

"You did; and you mentioned also that he rowed against you at Henley for the Stewards' and the Ladies' Plate. That fixes him. If you'd done me the compliment to remember, I was down there on a houseboat that year. And so, of course, his name isn't Foote at all?"

"Perhaps it's got changed," I admitted weakly. "Men's names do, you know, when they climb down the scale as he's done."

Hum," she said, and pulled down a chart of the Northern Gulf Coast from its cleat in the cabin roof. "Now show me exactly where this hermit lives."

"That chart's all wrong. The place in there isn't surveyed."

"Precisely. But you've been there, and you know the lay of it. Don't be shy. Your powers, my dear Mac, in that direction are notorious. Here's a pencil. Fill it in accurately, and tell me the landmarks from the Gulf side."

"If you go up there, and see this fellow, and sleep even one night in those swamps, you'll catch fever and die. Also, the mosquitoes and the sandflies will eat most of you before death comes. Don't be a fool. What more do you want to know about the man? Stay here, and I will tell you."

"My excellent Mac, I have pumped you dry. For the rest I must see him myself. And I shall not die of fever, because I shall get this yacht to take me round to the outside, and go from there, and so not have to spend a night ashore at all. Nor will the insects of the swamps devour me, because I own a wide-brimmed hat, and a large and most excellent veil."

"Well," said I, "if you will do this thing, at all events you shall do it decently. There's a small creek on beyond, up which we will incite the Van Sciaks to take the yacht. I'll bring our sloop. We will go with the pretence of alligatorhunting."

"You are an excellent person, Mac. You always see your own tastes aren't trampled on."

"My dear Mary, the alligator-shooting is a piece of deception for which I blush. It is en tirely on your behalf that I take up any more of it. You ought to be extremely grateful; not sarcastic. Go now and wheedle the Van Sciaks, and I'll be off and get my own boat under weigh."

In an hour's time the two yachts were standing out board and board over the shallow bar which guards the entrance to the Bayou of Bon Secours.

There was a romping breeze from the nor'ard, and we span at eight knots past the low shore, where only the tree-stems show above the water. Then we slipped out through the channel between Dauphin Island and Fort Morgan, and lifted to the swing of the outer sea, running east along the Gulf Coast. Night had fallen before we made the creek, and we tacked in over the bar by blazing moonlight, with centre-boards up, and the breeze eddying light and fitful through the trees. That night we took the rifles and the bull's-eye lanterns, and shot a dozen alligators by way of giving ourselves countenance.

Of course, Miss Wilcoxn did go to see Atcheson. I took her to the island myself, through an intolerable maze of lakes and waterways, and told the Van Sciaks that we hoped to slay alli gators by daylight, which is probably the baldest excuse a grown man with a pretty invention ever made. But I will give the girl credit for one thing she didn't stay talking to the fellow for more than ten minutes. What she said to him I don't know, because my instructions were to stay by the boat and see that it didn't drift away. But when she came back, and we rowed off, she found cause to comment that Atcheson was a curious handful.

"I told you that before," I said. "Now you've learnt it for yourself, I trust you're satisfied?"

"I am entirely, Mac. I hope you are, too?"

"I don't know about that. But I do know I'm extremely hot."

"Well, then, hurry and get back, and I'll fix you up a mint julep. We've ice on board, and all the other necessaries, and Mr. Van Sciak has shown me how to use a swizzle-stick. He said it might come in useful, as I had thoughts of set tling in America, don't you know?"

"So I've been given to understand. As you have not had my congratulations before, please accept them now in all fulness. I suppose I'm scratched from the running now?"

"Com-pletely, my dear boy. And it doesn't surprise you in the least, or disappoint you, either. We'd have quarrelled like cat and dog. We've no tastes in common. For instance, except for perhaps once, I loathe alligator-hunting."

And so we went back, and I was rewarded, not with one julep only, but several.

The Van Sciaks wanted to go to Mississippi Sound next day, and as the other man and I were bound for Pensacola, in Florida, the yachts separated, and I did not see Miss Wilcoxn again for some time. But I heard of some of her doings, which, to say the least of them, seemed eccentric. Also, which was worse, they were unworldly. Young men with culture and ten million dollars are not to be picked up every day; nor should they be thrown lightly aside.

But when I got back to Town, and, to my vast astonishment, saw Atcheson there, then a light began to dawn upon me. He was marching down Pall Mall as large as life, and very resplendent. He had on a very beautiful tail coat, the last gift of the gods in the way of hat and tie, and a new-reaped chin, which stood out refreshingly white against the rest of his counte nance. He shook me by the hand and said I was a great man. Then we went into a club and talked for several hours without a stop, and he explained to me how a hermit cannot hermitize, unless he has a disease vulgarly known as the "hump."

"It's enjoyable enough whilst you have that," said Atcheson, "but when the hump goes, the bottom's knocked out of the hermit business al together. What a filthy, squalid brute I must have been all that time."

"But you liked it well enough."

"I believe I did, in my morbid way. But it's over and done with now, thank heaven! and ' I'm going to marry Yum- Yum, Yum- Yum, your anger pray tarry ' Oh, bother, I've for gotten the words. Jove! I shall have a lot to pick up again."

"That's a fact," I said. " Ordinary sanity amongst other things. And so you're going to marry Mary Wilcoxn, after all?"

"It's a sure thing. Of course, her people were mad, because I'm not very well off, don't you know; and the other Johnnie's people are mad, too, at his being cut out. But you're the person they can't get over. It's you they are wild at principally. They will persist in it that you are at the bottom of the whole thing. Isn't it delightfully funny?"

But I didn't think it funny at all. I make quite sufficient enemies off my own bat for per sonal consumption. And, besides, as I have said, if the other fool hadn't got his legs sun burned, I shouldn't have gone off solus in the yawl-boat, nor meddled with Atcheson at all.

VI

THE LIZARD

IT is not in the least expected that the general public will believe the statements which will be made in this paper. They are written to catch the eye of Mr. Wilfred Cecil Cording (or Cordy) if he still lives, or in the event of his death to carry some news of his last movements to any of his still existing friends and relations. Further details may be had from me (by any of these interested people) at Poste Restante, Kettlewell, Wharfedale, Yorkshire. My name is M'Cray, and I am sufficiently well known there for letters to be forwarded to wherever I may be at the moment.

The matters in question happened two years ago on the last day of August. I had a small high-ground shoot near Kettlewell, but that morning all the upper parts of the hill were thick with dense mist, and shooting was out of the question. However, I had been going it pretty hard since the twelfth, and was not sorry for an off day, the more so as there was a newlyfound cave in the neighbourhood which I was anxious to explore thoroughly. Incidentally I may mention that cave-hunting and shooting were then my chief two amusements.

It was my keeper who brought me news to the inn about the impossibility of shooting, and I suggested to him that he should come with me to inspect the cave. He made some sort of excuse I forget what and I did not press the matter further. He was a Kettlewell native, and the dalesmen up there look upon the local caves with more awe than respect. They will not own up to believing in bogles, but I fancy their creed runs that way. I used to have a contempt for their qualms, but latterly I have somehow or other learned to respect them.

I had taken unwilling helpers cave-hunting w T ith me before, and found them such a nuisance that I had made up my mind not to be bothered with them again; so, as I say, I did not press for the keeper's society; but took candles, matches in a bottle, some magnesium wire, a small coil of rope, and a large flask of whisky, and set off alone.

The clouds above were wet, and a fine rain fell persistently. I tramped off along one of the three main roads that lead from the village; but which road it was, had better remain hidden for the present. And in time I got off this road and cut over the moor.

What I was looking for was a fresh scar on the hill side, caused by a roof-fall in one of the countless caves which honeycomb this limestone district; and although I had got my bearings pretty accurately, the fog was so thick up there that I had to take a good dozen casts before I hit upon the place.

I had not seen it since the 8th of August, when I first stumbled across it by accident whilst I was going over the hill to see how the birds promised for the following twelfth; and I was a good deal annoyed to find by the boot marks that quite a lot of people had visited it in the interval. However, I hoped that the larger part of these were made by shepherds, and per haps by my own keepers, and remembering their qualms, trusted that I might find the interior still untainpered with.

The cave was easy enough to enter. There was a funnel-shaped slide of peat-earth and mud and clay to start with, well pitted with boot marks; and then there was a tumbled wall of boulders, slanting inwards, down which I crawled face uppermost till the light behind me dwindled. The way was getting pretty murky, so I lit up a candle to avoid accidents, stepped knee-deep into a lively stream of water, and went briskly ahead. It was an ordinary enough limestone cave so far, with inferior stalactites, and a good deal of wet everywhere. It did not appear to have been disturbed, and I stepped along cheerfully.

Presently I got a bit of a shock. The roof above began to droop downwards, slowly but relentlessly. It seemed as though my way was soon going to be blocked. However, the water beneath deepened, and so I waded along to in spect as far on as possible. It was a cold job, for the water was icy, but then I am a bit of an enthusiast about cave-hunting, and it takes more than a trifle of discomfort to stop me.

The roof came down and down till I was forced into the water up to my chin, and the air too was none of the best. I was beginning to get disappointed: it looked as if I had got wet through to the bone with freezing cold cave water for no adequate result.

However, there is no accounting for the freaks of caves. Just when I fancied I was at the end of my tether, up went the roof again; I was able to stand erect once more; and a dozen yards fur ther on I came out on to dry rock, and was able to have a rest and a drop of whisky. The roof had quite disappeared to candle-light overhead, so I burned a foot of magnesium wire for a better inspection. It was really a magnificent cave.

But I did not stop to make any accurate measurements or drawings then, and for reasons which will appear, I have not been near to do so since. I was too cold to care for prolonged admiration, and I wanted to (so to speak) annex the whole of the cave's main contours before I took my departure. I was first man in, and wished to be able to describe the whole of my find. There is a certain keen emulation about these matters amongst cave-hunters.

So I walked on over the flat floor of rock, stepping over and through pools, and round boulders, and dodging round stalactites which hung from the unseen roof above, and slipping between slimy palings of stalagmite which sprouted from the floor. And then I came to a regular big subterranean tarn which stretched right across the cavern.

Spaces were big here and the candle did little to show them. It burned brightly enough and that pleased me: one has to be very careful in cave-hunting about foul air, because once over come by that, it means certain death if one is alone. The air in this cave, however, did not altogether pass muster; there was something new about it, and anything new in cave smells is always suspicious. It wasn't the smell of peat, or iron, or sandstone, or limestone, or fungus, though all these are common enough in caves; it was a sort of faint musky smell; and I had got an idea that it was in flavour rather sickly. It is hard to define these things, but that smell, although it might very possibly lead to a new discovery, somehow did not cheer me. In fact at times, when I inhaled a deeper breath of it than usual, it came very near to making my flesh creep.

However, hesitations of this kind are not business. I nipped off another foot of magnesium wire, lit it at the candle, and held the flaming end high above my head. Before me the water of the tarn lay motionless as a mirror of black glass; the sides vignetted away into alleys and bays; the roof was a groined and fretted dome, far overhead; and at the further side was a beach of white tumbled limestone.