He lifted his eyes and gazed on the Laurentians. Pencils of
incandescence swept across them, whitening their tender purple and then
fading, a sight to thrill the heart. Sometimes the pulsation would cease
and the whole mountain, older than any Alp, would deepen to cobalt blue,
reminding him that there might be cobalt within ten miles of him. In
fact within a hundred all the noble metals were being mined. Like most
men he loved blue, and what he chiefly loved was a soft cobalt blue
saturated with white light, as in petals of forgetmenot.
But that was mere personal preference. When he thought of color he
should not be diverted by living tissue, but ought always to consider
electricity. The more charges on the nucleus, the more color there ought
to be. Since the first twenty-seven elements are comparatively light and
abundant, color in real richness ought to begin at number twenty-eight
He closed his eyes and dreamed of ascending scales—oxides running
soberly in red and brown and black, sulphides fitting in with dusky
gold, chlorides almost prismatic.
He opened his eyes and perceived a faint mauve, and presently saw that
it came from a musk mallow blooming there in the thin soil. It gave him
a little shock, for no English or American chemist sees mauve without
feeling that English and American must stick together against Germans.
It was an Englishman who first discovered how to make mauve, but it was
Germans who acted on the hint, ruining the madder fields of France and
the indigo fields of Asia. Germans might yet ruin American labor and
come to blows with Americans, but Marvin did not seem to care. In the
hospital he had hated Germans with a consuming hatred. Now the languor
of color seemed to have fallen on him like a dream.
Finally he aroused himself and got down to business. He loaded his
skiff, rigged his rod, and brought on board his tomato can with the
crayfish. They had no idea of what was going to happen, and neither had
he, but he pushed off and rowed south. The water felt good against the
blades, always the soft resistance and never too much to overcome with
ease.
He passed great steamers that were going up, and thanked God that they
were not troop ships. They had saved the day with iron. Doubtless every
mile of their course through here had been carefully patrolled. Even now
that short black craft slipping past a dull red freighter looked like a
patrol.
The river presently turned and revealed a considerable bay, enclosing
the island he sought. He swung in westward, and rested on his oars above
its mate. This evidently belonged to the Federal Government, for on its
eastern shoulder appeared a range light—a tall white pole on which a
great lamp is daily run up. Beside the pole was a tiny red roof above a
snowy bit of whitewash—the lamp-house where the light-keeper fills his
lamps.
He dropped anchor and began to fish. No good. He lifted anchor and tried
another spot, but with no better results. Four times he moved, and four
times he failed.
He did not care much. There was sweet air in his nostrils, and he did
not have to marry Gratia Ferry! Nor did he care when he noticed a bank
of smoky pearl coming down the river with some tension in it. He had no
fear of lightning and no objection to getting wet. It was purely out of
habit that he finally made for Old Duck and sought shelter under the red
osiers.
The shower began to patter above him. The electrons crackled across like
ripples of white lace fit for white shoulders. Now there stole upon his
ears the sound of chimes. A veery was singing in the rain. There was
something cathedral in that voice—something high and holy yet human and
piercing. Again and again the young seraph rang his spiral of sweetness.
Why should atomic rhythms be lost in the crystalline earth, only to
emerge as ecstasy?
Then came a whir and a humming. It was another bird. He saw a dim little
cross with black edges, the pattern produced by instantaneous wings. Not
six feet from him the pretty trifle came to rest, and winked at him.
There she sat, a dram of green against the osier. There was no blaze on
her throat, but she was even a greater mystery than the singer. How came
electricity to shape itself so living yet so jewel-small?
A drop of rain fell on the humming-bird, and she ruffled her feathers.
Another drop, and she flew. She went in the direction of the lamp-house,
passing through the jungle as easily as thought.
The rain was beginning to soak through the osiers, and again the
instinct for shelter awoke within him. He wished to be snugger. How any
creature can hope to be snug on the polished surface of an iron ball
whirling in open space is not evident, but souls and animals certainly
try for snugness. Creatures afraid of lightning creep into feather beds,
tramps into haystacks, Eskimos into snowdrifts, rabbits into hollow
stumps, saints into the thought of God. In Marvin’s case there was a
lamp-house near. He arose and followed the humming-bird.