"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."
"What do you think it is?" I asked.
"I think it's a man--I think it's a branch of the human race--that's
what I think. Let me tell you something: the deepest spot in the
Atlantic Ocean is a trifle over five miles deep--and I suppose you
know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this
headland. The British exploring vessel, _Gull_, Captain Marotte,
discovered and sounded it, I believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my
belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the
last race of amphibious human beings!"
This was childish; I did not bother to reply.
"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know,
and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my
cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his
fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care
whether it's homicide or not--anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it
attracts me!"
I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a
passion, and I did not choose to say what I thought.
"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning
and spitting about after my nurse--when she walks, when she rows, when
she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't
tolerate it, I tell you!"
"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
with laughter.
The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to
close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.
That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over sand and cove. I heard the
seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder--louder than I
ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look
at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf,
all alone there in the night. But--was it a man? For the figure
suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle,
waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window
again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the
chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the
coast--I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.
V
It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the
great auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to
be sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
York.
I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive
New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of Bluff Street."
My week as a guest of Mr. Halyard proved interesting. I wrangled with
that invalid to his heart's content, I worked all day on my osier
cage, I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We
sometimes found it.
As for the thing they called the harbor-master, I saw it a dozen
times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the
sea that of course no trace of it remained when I reached the spot,
rifle in hand.
I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbor-master was a
demented darky--wandered from, Heaven knows where--perhaps shipwrecked
and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant to
know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse.
She, however, persisted in regarding the harbor-master as a
sea-creature; she earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's
gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth, and its eyes were
luminous and lidless and fixed.
"Besides," she said, with a shudder, "it's all slate color, like a
porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of india-rubber in a
dissecting-room."
The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for
Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced
his intention of going with me.
"Going where?" I asked.
"To Port-of-Waves and then to New York," he replied, tranquilly.