A little later he called to her: she emerged from her tent, and together
they sat down on the edge of the Causeway, with the two maps spread over
their knees.
That both maps very accurately represented the topography of the
immediate vicinity there could be no doubt; the only discrepancy seemed
to lie in the situation of the Maltese cross. On White's map the cross
fell well within his half of Lot 210; in Jean Sandys' map it was
situated between her half of 210 and 220.
Plot it out as they might, using Mr. Munsell's diagram, the result was
always the same; and after a while they gave up the useless attempt to
reconcile the differences in the two maps.
From where they were sitting together on the Causeway's edge, they were
facing due west. At their feet rippled the clear, deep waters of the
swamp, lapping against the base of the Causeway like transparent little
waves in a northern lake. A slight current disclosed the channel where
it flowed out of the north western edges of the swamp, which was set
with tall cypress trees, their flaring bases like silvery pyramids deep
set in the shining ooze.
East of them the Coakachee flowed through thickets of saw-grass and
green brier, between a forest of oak, pine, and cedar, bordered on the
western side by palm and palmetto--all exactly as drawn in the map of
Pedro Valdez.
The afternoon was cloudless and warm; an exquisite scent of blossoms
came from the forest when a light breeze rippled the water. Somewhere in
those green and tangled depths jasmine hung its fairy gold from arching
branches, and wild oranges were in bloom. At intervals, when the breeze
set from the east, the heavenly fragrance of magnolia grew more
pronounced.
After a little searching he discovered the huge tree, far towering above
oak and pine and palm, set with lustrous clusters, ivory and palest
gold, exhaling incense.
"Wonderful," she said under her breath, when he pointed it out to her.
"This enchanted land is one endless miracle to me."
"You have never before been in the South?"
"I have been nowhere."
"Oh. I thought perhaps when you were a child----"
"We were too poor. My mother taught piano."
"I see," he said gravely.
"I had no childhood," she said. "After the public school, it was the
book section in department stores.... They let me go last week. That is
how I came to be in the Heikem galleries."
He clasped his hands around one knee and looked out across the
semi-tropical landscape.
Orange-coloured butterflies with wings like lighted lanterns fluttered
along the edges of the flowering shrubs; a lovely purplish-black one
with four large, white polka dots on his wings flitted persistently
about them.
Over the sun-baked Causeway blue-tailed lizards raced and chased each
other, frisking up tree trunks, flashing across branches: a snowy heron
rose like some winged thing from Heaven, and floated away into the
silvery light. And like living jewels the gorgeous wood-ducks glided in
and out where the water sparkled among the cypress trees.
"Think," he said, "of those men in armour toiling through these swamps
under a vertical sun! Think of them, starved, haggard, fever racked,
staggering toward their El Dorado!--their steel mail scorching their
bodies, the briers and poison-grass festering their flesh; moccasin,
rattler, and copperhead menacing them with death at every step; the
poisoned arrows of the Indians whizzing from every glade!"
"Blood and gold," she nodded, "and the deathless bravery of avarice!
That was Spain. And it inflamed the sunset of Spanish glory."
He mused for a while: "To think of De Soto being here--_here_ on this
very spot!--here on this ancient Causeway, amid these forests!--towering
in his armour! His plated mail must have made a burning hell for his
body!"
She looked down at the cool, blue water at her feet. He, too, gazed at
it, curiously. For a few feet the depths were visible, then a
translucent gloom, glimmering with emerald lights, obscured further
penetration of his vision. Deep down in that water was what they
sought--if it truly existed at all.
After a few moments' silence he rose, drew the hunting-knife at his
belt, severed a tall, swamp-maple sapling, trimmed it, and, returning to
the water's edge, deliberately sounded the channel. He could not touch
bottom there, or even at the base of the Causeway.
"Miss Sandys," he said, "there is plenty of room for such a structure as
the Maltese cross is supposed to mark."
"I wonder," she murmured.
"Oh, there's room enough," he repeated, with an uneasy laugh. "Suppose
we begin operations!"
"When?"
"Now!"
She looked up at him, flushed and smiling:
"It is going to take weeks and weeks, isn't it?"
"I thought so before I came down here. But--I don't see why we shouldn't
blow a hole through this Causeway in a few minutes."
"What!"
She rose to her feet, slightly excited, not understanding.
"I could set off enough dynamite right here," he said, stamping his heel
into the white dust, "--enough dynamite to open up that channel into the
Coakachee. Why don't I do it?"