"You are here for purposes of scientific investigation," she added,
sweetly. "I should not think of taking your time for the mere sake of
accumulating wealth for my father and me."
There didn't seem to be anything for me to say at that moment. Chilled,
I gazed at the flashing ring of fire.
And, as I gazed, suddenly I became aware of a little, pointed muzzle, two
pricked-up ears, and two ruby-red eyes gazing intently out at me from the
mass of flames.
The girl beside me saw it, too.
"Don't move!" she whispered. "That is one of the flame creatures. It may
venture out if you keep perfectly still."
Rigid with amazement, I sat like a stone image, staring at the most
astonishing sight I had ever beheld.
For several minutes the ferret-like creature never stirred from where it
crouched in the crater fire; the alert head remained pointed toward us; I
could even see that its thick fur must have possessed the qualities of
asbestos, because here and there a hair or two glimmered incandescent;
and its eyes, nose, and whiskers glowed and glowed as the flames pulsated
around it.
After a long while it began to move out of the fire, slowly, cautiously,
cunning eyes fixed on us--a small, slim, wiry, weasel-like creature on
which the sunlight fell with a vitreous glitter as it crept forward into
the grass.
Then, from the fire behind, another creature of the same sort appeared,
another, others, then dozens of eager, lithe, little animals appeared
everywhere from the flames and began to frisk and play and run about in
the grass and nibble the fresh, green, succulent herbage with a snipping
sound quite audible to us.
One came so near my feet that I could examine it minutely.
Its fur and whiskers seemed heavy and dense and like asbestos fibre, yet
so fine as to appear silky. Its eyes, nose, and claws were scarlet, and
seemed to possess a glassy surface.
I waited my opportunity, and when the little thing came nosing along
within reach, I seized it.
Instantly it emitted a bewildering series of whistling shrieks, and
twisted around to bite me. Its body was icy.
"Don't let it bite!" cried the girl. "Be careful, Mr. Smith!"
[Illustration: "'Don't let it bite!' cried the girl. 'Be careful, Mr.
Smith!'"]
But its jaws were toothless; only soft, cold gums pinched me, and I held
it twisting and writhing, while the icy temperature of its body began to
benumb my fingers and creep up my wrist, paralyzing my arm; and its
incessant and piercing shrieks deafened me.
In vain I transferred it to the other hand, and then passed it from one
hand to the other, as one shifts a lump of ice or a hot potato, in an
attempt to endure the temperature: it shrieked and squirmed and doubled,
and finally wriggled out of my stiffened and useless hands, and scuttled
away into the fire.
It was an overwhelming disappointment. For a moment it seemed
unendurable.
"Never mind," I said, huskily, "if I caught one in my hands, I can surely
catch another in a trap."
"I am so sorry for your disappointment," she said, pitifully.
"Do _you_ care, Miss Blythe?" I asked.
She blushed.
"Of course I care," she murmured.
My hands were too badly frost-nipped to become eloquent. I merely sighed
and thrust them into my pockets. Even my arm was too stiff to encircle
her shapeful waist. Devotion to Science had temporarily crippled me. Love
must wait. But, as we ascended the grassy slope together, I promised
myself that I would make her a good husband, and that I should spend at
least part of every day of my life in trapping crows and smearing their
claws with glue.
That evening I was seated on the veranda beside Wilna--Miss Blythe's name
was Wilna--and what with gazing at her and fitting together some of the
folding box-traps which I always carried with me--and what with trying to
realise the pecuniary magnificence of our future existence together, I
was exceedingly busy when Blythe came in to display, as I supposed, his
most recent daub to me.
The canvas he carried presented a series of crimson speckles, out of
which burst an eruption of green streaks--and it made me think of
stepping on a caterpillar.
My instinct was to placate this impossible man. He was _her_ father. I
meant to honour him if I had to assault him to do it.
"Supremely satisfying!" I nodded, chary of naming the subject. "It is a
stride beyond the art of the future: it is a flying leap out of the Not
Yet into the Possibly Perhaps! I thank you for enlightening me, Mr.
Blythe. I am your debtor."
He fairly snarled at me:
"What are _you_ talking about!" he demanded.