The peculiarity of Smith's proceedings highly stimulated the curiosity
of Mr. Phillips. The envelope in his pocket helped him to the belief
that he held the clue of an exciting mystery. He pondered the matter
while he shaved. He was dull company at breakfast because he could not
get it out of his head. He made up his mind at last to confide his
vague suspicions to Mr. Donovan. This was a difficult decision to
arrive at. He would have much preferred to unravel his mystery
himself, to go to the Queen with evidence completely sufficient to
condemn a whole band of conspirators. But he saw no chance of getting
any further in his investigations. Smith's morning expedition remained
obstinately unconnected with the torn envelope. A sense of loyalty to
his employers combined with devotion to the Queen decided him to tell
Mr. Donovan all he knew.
The work of unloading the _Ida_ went on briskly all the morning. Mr.
Donovan sat, remote from the turmoil, on his balcony. Mr. Phillips,
seeking a moment when Smith was busy elsewhere, climbed to the
balcony. Mr. Donovan welcomed him.
"Sit right down," he said. "There's another chair knocking about
somewhere. Take a cigar."
Mr. Phillips hauled a deck chair from the sunshine into the shade and
stood leaning over the back of it.
"This island," said Mr. Donovan, "seems likely to be restful. Once
we're through with the job of landing our trunks we shall be able to
settle down and just stay put. I don't say but it's pleasant for a man
like me who's worked some in his time to sit here and watch other
people sweating----"
He waved his hand towards the islanders, who staggered up the steps
under their loads. He included with a sweeping gesture two boats which
had just left the ship's side. The day was exceedingly hot. All these
men were certainly sweating. The clanking and rattling of the donkey
engines were plainly audible across the water. The engineman was
probably sweating too. Captain Wilson, standing erect in the full
blaze of the sun on the steamer's fore-deck, cannot possibly have been
cool. Mr. Donovan sighed with satisfaction.
"I don't deny that it's pleasant," he said, "kind of aggravates the
sense of restfulness; but for real calm give me a country where nobody
works at all. That's what I am looking forward to. That's why I reckon
this island is going to suit me."
"Mr. Donovan," said Phillips, "there's a matter I want to speak to you
about. I daresay there's nothing in it; but I can't help feeling----"
Mr. Phillips' hand went to his breast pocket. He clutched the torn
envelope.
"Here's something I picked up the day before yesterday," he said.
Smith stepped suddenly between him and Mr. Donovan. Smith was a hard
worker, and a loud shouter when shouting was desirable. He was also,
as Phillips knew, a quiet mover when he chose. He held a tray in his
hand with two glasses on it. He handed one to Mr. Donovan and the
other to Phillips.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but there's some cases of books come
ashore, sir. I thought you'd like to arrange about them yourself, sir,
seeing as how I don't understand libraries."
He spoke to Phillips. He did not expect Mr. Donovan to arrange
anything.
"You're young, Phillips," said Mr. Donovan. "According to the prophets
and other wise men it's a good thing to be young. I'm getting on for
sixty, but there are compensations. I don't feel called on to see
after things. I don't have to toil any. Smith!"
"Yes, sir."
"There exist in the U. S. A. more than two hundred formulae for the
compounding of cocktails. They vary from the simple dry Martini to the
more poetic Angel's Smile. How many of them do you know, Smith?"
"About eight, sir, eight or ten."
"Few men, except professional bar-tenders, know more," said Mr.
Donovan. "But you can learn. I see before you, Smith, years of
artistic endeavour. Eight from two hundred leave a hundred and
ninety-two. I think I have a book containing the formulae. It was
compiled by one of our leading citizens after a term of residence in a
dry State. I shall give you the book, Smith. My digestion remains
unimpaired up to date. I shall sample the results of your labours."
Mr. Phillips swallowed his cocktail and went away without saying any
more about the torn envelope. He had no intention of telling his story
in the presence of Smith.
He tried again an hour later. He calculated on not being interrupted
this time. Smith had gone off to the steamer. From time to time he had
to go to the steamer to act as interpreter there. Captain Wilson
seemed curiously incapable of making himself understood by the
islanders.
"That you again, Mr. Phillips," said Donovan. "Sit down. Take a cigar
and sit down."
"There's something I want to speak to you about, sir," said Phillips.
"If you must speak," said Donovan, "I hope you'll sort of murmur. That
engine has stopped clanking for a moment and Smith isn't shouting any
at those poor devils of islanders. 'Silence,' says the poet, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, 'like a poultice came to heal the wound of sound.'
It's a kind of advanced sample of what this island's going to be."
This was not encouraging to Mr. Phillips. He hesitated. Far away,
under the shadow of the cliffs, a small boat moved slowly. In it was
the Queen, seated in the stern with a huge box of chocolates in her
lap. Kalliope rowed, her mouth full of chocolates. Phillips could not
see the box or Kalliope's mouth. The boat was too far away for that.
But he knew the chocolates were there. Early in the day the Queen had
come to him and demanded candies. She had come at a fortunate moment.
He was in the act of opening a large case, sent out, so the label
declared, by Fuller, and Kalliope had carried down to the boat a huge
box of chocolates. It was the sight of that boat--perhaps, too, the
thought of the chocolates--which spurred Mr. Phillips to tell his tale
in spite of all discouragement. Is there anything which is more
eloquent of innocent helplessness, anything which makes a stronger
appeal to the protective instinct of a man, than the vision of two
girls eating chocolates?
"The day I first landed, sir," he said, "I found this."
He handed the torn envelope to Mr. Donovan.
"The postmark, sir," he said, "is London, December 15, 1913. Now how
do you think it got here?"
Donovan looked at the envelope curiously. He turned it over, felt the
texture of it with his fingers. At last he spoke.
"Mr. Phillips," he said, "I may be wrong in my interpretation of
facts. I don't know that any recognized minister of religion would
support me; but it's my belief that if Eve hadn't stirred that serpent
up, kind of annoyed him by poking round, the creature would have lain
quiet enough and there'd have been no trouble about the apple. That's
the nature of snakes. I've seen quite a few and I know. Now this
island is about the nearest thing to a real restful paradise that I've
bumped into since I first started my pilgrimage through this vale of
tears. I don't say there's no snakes in it. There may be. But my
notion is to let those snakes lie unless they start in molesting me."
"But," said Mr. Phillips, "there must have been somebody in the house
here, somebody who had no right to be in it. Otherwise how would that
envelope with the London postmark----"
"The British nation," said Donovan, "is at the present moment exciting
itself quite a bit about the effect of the Movies--what you call
cinemas your side--on the minds of the young. What your leading
reformers say is that it upsets the budding intellect of the rising
generation to present life to it as life is not. As a general rule I'm
not much taken up with eminent reformers. They're a class of citizens
I don't admire, though I admit they have their uses in supplying
loftiness of view and generally keeping up the more serious kinds of
charm practised by the female sex. But in the matter of the effect of
movies on the young mind those reformers may be right. It seems to me
you've gathered in some foolish notions about life, Mr. Phillips.
Desperate villains dropping envelopes and generally scattering clues
along their tracks would be interesting things, a darned sight more
interesting than eminent reformers. Only there aren't any. They don't
exist outside of novels and picture houses."
Mr. Donovan held out the torn envelope. Phillips took it and stuffed
it into his pocket again. He was unconvinced. Cinema exhibitions are
responsible for many vain imaginings, no doubt; but his envelope was a
fact. He had found it. The postmark was plain and clear. He moved over
to the edge of the balcony and gazed out across the sunlit bay. It
seemed impossible then and there to tell the story of Smith's morning
expedition. Mr. Donovan's logical rationalism was invincible.
"If you happen to come on that book about cocktails," said Donovan,
"just give it to Smith. It's somewhere. In giving the order for the
library for this island, I specially mentioned that book along with
complete illustrated editions of all standard American and European
authors."
Phillips turned and left the balcony. It was, after all, absurd to
worry and puzzle over his envelope. It could have no meaning. Some
stray tourist perhaps, sight-seeing far from all beaten tracks, had
made his way into the house. Tourists are notorious for leaving paper
behind them. As for Smith and his boating at dawn--could Smith
possibly have gone to search for breakfast eggs in a sea cave?
He glanced once more at the bay before he returned to his work. The
Queen's boat was no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in
some quiet creek, or the Queen had taken a fancy to cross the bay and
explore the village where her subjects lived.
Kalliope rowed easily and was well content to go on rowing all day.
She was almost perfectly happy. Fuller's sweets were a revelation of
unimagined delight to her, and she could gaze without interruption at
the Queen. There was little in the world left for her heart to desire.
The girls rowed round the shore of the bay. The shadow of the white
cliffs was grateful. The Queen delighted to drag her hands through the
cool water. The sound of its lapping against the steep rocks soothed
her. She liked to peer into the blue depths. When she looked up it was
pleasant to meet Kalliope's soft brown eyes and to see the ready smile
broaden on the girl's lips. Now and then, laughing, she leaned forward
and pressed a chocolate into Kalliope's mouth. The Queen's fingers
were often wet with salt water, but that did not spoil the flavour of
the sweets for Kalliope.
The boat slipped past high sheer cliffs, past little coves, on whose
sand men's feet had surely never trodden, past the mouths of great
caves, gloomy, mysterious, from the depths of which came a hollow
murmuring of water. The caves had a strange fascination for the
Queen. Her eyes followed their steep walls up to the arches of their
high dripping roofs, tried to pierce the dim and darkening shades
within, gazed down through the water at round boulders and flat
shelves of rock, seen magnified and strangely blue in the depths. At
first she was half fearful and would not allow the boat to be taken
near the mouths of the caves she passed. At the mouth of one cave
Kalliope shouted suddenly. Echoes answered her from within, repeating
her shout and repeating it till the cries seemed to come from far off,
from the very centre of the island. Opposite another cave Kalliope
shouted again and banged her oars against the gunwhale of the boat. A
flock of grey birds, some kind of rock pigeons, flew out, making a
sound of rushing with their wings. The Queen became, little by little,
less fearful and more curious.
They came at last to a cavern with a wide entrance. The daylight shone
far inside. The water was blue far into the depths, not purple or
black as it seemed to be just inside the narrower caves. The Queen
signed to Kalliope. The boat turned, slipped into the wide entrance,
rose and fell upon the swelling water under the high roof. Kalliope
rowed on. For awhile she rowed with her oars full stretch on their
rowlocks. Then the walls narrowed more and more till she must ship her
oars. The boat glided on slowly from the impulse of her last stroke.
The walls narrowed still. Kalliope stood up. Pushing against one wall
and then the other with an oar grasped midway in her hands she drove
the boat forward. Suddenly the space widened. The roof was higher,
almost out of sight. The boat passed into a huge cavern very dimly
lit. The Queen gasped, sat open-mouthed in breathless silence for a
moment; then looking round she saw that the cavern was lit by several
thin shafts of pale-blue light. More than one of the caves whose
entrance the boat had passed led into this great cavern. Kalliope,
laughing, plunged an oar into the waters. It shone silver like some
long fish. The Queen gazed at it. She plunged her own arm in and saw
it turn silver too.
The water was still deep and seemed scarcely to shallow at all as the
boat moved forward into the depths of the cavern. Suddenly the Queen
saw before her a steep beach covered with large, round stones. The
boat grounded. Kalliope leaped on shore. She held her hand out to the
Queen. The two girls stood together on the beach. Kalliope, still
holding her Queen's hand, led the way upwards, away from the boat and
the water. Her bare feet moved lightly over the stones which shifted
and rolled under the Queen's shoes, making a hollow sound. Echoes
multiplied the sound until the air was full of hollow mutterings,
like the smothered reports of very distant guns. Kalliope led on.
To her the way was familiar. The dim light and hollow noises were
commonplace. At last she stopped and with a little cry pointed
forward.
The Queen looked. Her eyes were well accustomed now to the dim light.
She saw.
There in the depths of the mysterious cavern, it would not have
surprised the girl to see strange things. She would scarcely have been
astonished if Kalliope had pointed to a group of mermaids combing damp
hair with long curved shells. Old Triton with his wreathed horn would
have been in place, almost an expected vision, if he had sat on a
throne of rock, sea carved, with panting dolphins at his feet. The
Queen saw no such beings. What she did see called from her a little
cry of surprise, made her cling suddenly to Kalliope's arm.
"Oh!" she said. "Oh, Kalliope, what are they?"
"Damn boxes," said Kalliope.
Before the eyes of the Queen, stretching along the back of the cave,
was a long row of large galvanized iron tanks, strongly made, with
heavily studded seams, each with a great copper tap. They were ranged
in a most orderly line, like some grey monsters carefully drilled.
They were all exactly the same width, the same height, and the copper
spouts exactly matched each other.
"Damned boxes," said Kalliope cheerfully.
Any one looking at them might almost have agreed with her. They were
not precisely boxes. They were cisterns, tanks, but they gave the
impression of being damnable and damned.
"But," said the Queen, "what are they for? What's the meaning of
them? How did they get here? Who brought them?"
Kalliope did not understand the questions, but guessed at what her
mistress asked. She had been learning English for three days only. She
had been quick to pick up certain words from the Queen, words in
frequent use between them. But in face of questionings like these the
vocabulary of millinery and hair dressing failed her hopelessly. She
fell back on what she had picked up from the sailors' lips and from
her brothers who were already enriching the island language with
English slang.
"Blighters," she said, "mucky ship--go row, go row--damn boxes."
In spite of the pale light and the sinister mystery of the tanks
in front of her the Queen laughed aloud. The pursuing echoes
made Kalliope's English irresistibly absurd. Then she pondered.
Men--whether "blighters" in Kalliope's mouth conveyed reproach or
were simply a synonym for men she did not know--men in a ship--"mucky"
described the ship as little probably as "damn boxes" described the
packing-cases of furniture or "bloody" her trunks of clothes. Men
in a ship had brought the tanks, had rowed them--"go row" was plain
enough--ashore in boats.
"But who," said the Queen, "and why?"
Kalliope was beaten. Who and why were too much for her, as indeed they
have been for people far wiser than she. Are not all theology and all
philosophy attempts, and for the most part vain attempts, to deal
with just those two words, who and why?
"Blighters," said Kalliope, and the echoes repeated her words with
emphasis, "blighters, blighters, blighters," till the Queen came to
believe it.
Then Kalliope, memory wakened in her, grew suddenly hopeful. She began
to hum a tune, very softly at first, making more than one false start;
but getting it nearly right at last. The Queen recognized it. She had
heard it a hundred times in old days at prayers in the chapel of her
college. It was a hymn tune. The words came back to her at once.
"Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God." She took
Kalliope by the arm and led her back to the boat.
"Come away," she said, "quick, quick. I'm going mad."
Kalliope entered into the spirit of a new game. She ran down across
the rolling pebbles.
"Go row," she said. "Quick, quick."
The boat, Kalliope pushing, dragging, rowing, burst from the cavern,
fled beyond the shadow of the cliffs, glided into the blaze of
sunshine and the sparkling water of the outer bay. The Queen lay back
in the stern and laughed. Kalliope, resting on her oars, laughed too.
The Queen's laughter passed into an uncontrollable fit. Tears rolled
down her cheeks. Her sides were sore. She gasped for breath. The
thought of that row of portentously solemn grey tanks was irresistibly
comic. They looked like stranded codfish with their tongues out. They
looked like a series of caricatures of an American politician, a
square-headed ponderous man, who had once dined with her father. He
had the same appearance of imbecile gravity, the same enormous
pomposity. The copper spouts were so many exaggerated versions of his
nose.
Her imagination flew to a vision of the men who had brought the tanks
and cisterns there in a "mucky ship." She seemed to see them, thin
scarecrows of men, crawling over the rusty sides of some battered
tramp steamer; mournful men with brown faces and skinny arms, singing
their hymn with sharp cracked voices while they laboured at their
utterly preposterous task. Laughter conquered the Queen. She lay back
helpless in the merciless grip of uncontrollable merriment. Kalliope
could not laugh so much. The joke was beyond her. She sat with a
wavering half-smile on her lips watching the Queen. The box of
chocolates lay in the bottom of the boat. Kalliope stretched her foot
out, touched the box, pushed it gently towards the Queen. It seemed to
her waste of a golden opportunity to leave the box, no more than half
empty, at their feet. The movement broke the spell of the Queen's
laughter. She picked up the box, pushed chocolates into Kalliope's
mouth, filled her own with them.