"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected,
musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the
pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad,
thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling
down, measured the dog.
"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."
Inspired by her coolness and perfect composure, I set the rifle in the
corner and opened the door. Sunlight fell in bars through the quiet
woods; nothing stirred on land or water save the great, yellow-striped
butterflies that fluttered and soared and floated above the flowering
thickets bordering the jungle.
The heat became intense; Miss Barrison went to her room to change her
gown for a lighter one; I sat down under a live-oak, eyes and ears
strained for any sign of our invisible neighbors.
When she emerged in the lightest and filmiest of summer gowns, she
brought the camera with her; and for a while we took pictures of each
other, until we had used up all but one film.
Desiring to possess a picture of Miss Barrison and myself seated
together, I tied a string to the shutter-lever and attached the other
end of the string to the dog, who had resumed his interrupted
slumbers. At my whistle he jumped up nervously, snapping the lever,
and the picture was taken.
With such innocent and harmless pastime we whiled away the afternoon.
She made twelve more apple-pies. I mounted guard over them. And we
were just beginning to feel a trifle uneasy about Professor Farrago,
when he appeared, tramping sturdily through the forest, green umbrella
and butterfly-net under one arm, shot-gun and cyanide-jar under the
other, and his breast all criss-crossed with straps, from which
dangled field-glasses, collecting-boxes, and botanizing-tins--an
inspiring figure indeed--the embodied symbol of science indomitable,
triumphant!
We hailed him with three guilty cheers; the dog woke up with a
perfunctory bark--the first sound I had heard from him since he yelped
his disapproval of me on the lagoon.
Miss Barrison produced three bowls full of boiling water and dropped
three pellets of concentrated soup-meat into them, while I prepared
coffee. And in a few moments our simple dinner was ready--the red
ants had been dusted from the biscuits, the spiders chased off the
baked beans, the scorpions shaken from the napkins, and we sat down at
the rough, improvised table under the palms.
The professor gave us a brief but modest account of his short tour of
exploration. He had brought back a new species of orchid, several
undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed. He appeared,
however, to be tired and singularly depressed, and presently we
learned why.
It seemed that he had gone straight to that section of the forest
where he had hitherto always found signs of the transparent and
invisible creatures which he had determined to capture, and he had not
found a single trace of them.
"It alarms me," he said, gravely. "If they have deserted this region,
it might take a lifetime to locate them again in this wilderness."
Then, very quietly, sinking her voice instinctively, as though the
unseen might be at our very elbows listening, Miss Barrison recounted
the curious adventure which had befallen the dog and the first batch
of apple-pies.
With visible and increasing excitement the professor listened until
the very end. Then he struck the table with clinched fist--a
resounding blow which set the concentrated soup dancing in the bowls
and scattered the biscuits and the industrious red ants in every
direction.
"Eureka!" he whispered. "Miss Barrison, your deduction was not only
perfectly reasonable, but brilliant. You are right; the pies are for
that very purpose. I conceived the idea when I first came here. Again
and again the pies that my guide made out of dried apples disappeared
in a most astonishing and mysterious manner when left to cool. At
length I determined to watch them every second; and did so, with the
result that late one afternoon I was amazed to see a pie slowly rise
from the table and move swiftly away through the air about four feet
above the ground, finally disappearing into a tangle of jasmine and
grape-vine.
"The apparently automatic flight of that pie solved the problem; these
transparent creatures cannot resist that delicacy. Therefore I decided
to bait the cage for them this very night--Look! What's the matter
with that dog?"
The dog suddenly bounded into the air, alighted on all fours, ears,
eyes, and muzzle concentrated on a point directly behind us.
"Good gracious! The pies!" faltered Miss Barrison, half rising from
her seat; but the dog rushed madly into her skirts, scrambling for
protection, and she fell back almost into my arms.
Clasping her tightly, I looked over my shoulder; the last pie was
snatched from the table before my eyes and I saw it borne swiftly away
by something unseen, straight into the deepening shadows of the
forest.
The professor was singularly calm, even slightly ironical, as he
turned to me, saying:
"Perhaps if you relinquish Miss Barrison she may be able to free
herself from that dog."
I did so immediately, and she deposited the cowering dog in my arms.
Her face had suddenly become pink.
I passed the dog on to Professor Farrago, dumping it viciously into
his lap--a proceeding which struck me as resembling a pastime of
extreme youth known as "button, button, who's got the button?"
The professor examined the animal gravely, feeling its pulse, counting
its respirations, and finally inserting a tentative finger in an
attempt to examine its tongue. The dog bit him.
"Ouch! It's a clear case of fright," he said, gravely. "I wanted a dog
to aid me in trailing these remarkable creatures, but I think this dog
of yours is useless, Gilland."
"It's given us warning of the creatures' presence twice already," I
argued.
"Poor little thing," said Miss Barrison, softly; "I don't know why,
but I love that dog.... He has eyes like yours, Mr. Gilland--"
Exasperated, I rose from the table. "He's got eyes like holes burned
in a blanket!" I said. "And if ever a flicker of intelligence lighted
them I have failed to observe it."
The professor regarded me dreamily. "We ought to have more pies," he
observed. "Perhaps if you carried the oven into the shanty--"
"Certainly," said Miss Barrison; "we can lock the door while I make
twelve more pies."
I carried the portable camping-oven into the cabin, connected the
patent asbestos chimney-pipes, and lighted the fire. And in a few
minutes Miss Barrison, sleeves rolled up and pink apron pinned under
her chin, was busily engaged in rolling pie-crust, while Professor
Farrago measured out spices and set the dried apples to soak.
The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the forest as I
stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and
cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I
looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the
white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water.
For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then
lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily
sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the
fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or
whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft
booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the
Southern whippoorwill's incessant call.
At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the
strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage
hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite
distances.
And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but
ceaseless--the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to
a steady monotone.
Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving
Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell
a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.
I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees
gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked
up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and
resumed her attitude of contented indifference.
"Where is the professor?" I asked.
"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."
"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed,
closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the
air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of
rain."
"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy!
your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."
So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional
spider.
"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away--"
"I was going anyhow--"
"Please don't."
"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.
"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.
"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she
remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.
"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because
you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."
"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"
There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.
"How is your burned finger?" I asked.
She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.
"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance
at the professor's closed door.
"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the
finger-tips--"
"You tried that this afternoon."
"But the dog interrupted us--"
"Interrupted _you_. Besides--"
"What?"
"I don't think you ought to," she said.
Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped
in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind
stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint
whisper and crackle of the fire.
A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the
wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which
crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle
within.
"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver!
And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us
all."
She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while
she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe,
carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious
fragrance filled the room.
"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to
lift them out."
Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to
cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it
again.
"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and
come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her
handkerchief.
I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled,
some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some
snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue
edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to
the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to
the glass.
"I don't suppose you know that the antennæ of that silvery-winged moth
are distinctly pectinate," I said.
"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard
College."
"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You
are a Doctor of Entomology?"
"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year
I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."
She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my
own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to
self-sustenance."
She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.
"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose
I'd flirt with you if I was?"
She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem
of Andrew Lang:
"Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,
But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."
Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't
know why.
The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a
saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.
Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left
the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.
"That's curious," I said.
"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good
gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"
"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"
A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were
feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.
"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.
The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the
pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.
We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the
glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and
carried them into my room.
Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand,
and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her
room and softly closed the door.
And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle
resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I
dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed
to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other,
eating slice after slice of apple-pie.