Chatterbox, 1906 Part 23

'I'll go and call somebody,' said Alan, surprised at her terror.

Feeling it would be foolish to detain him, Marjorie said no more, but continued her efforts to wake Estelle. She rubbed her hands, stroked the hair off her face, and raised her in her arms in order to make her more comfortable. But, alas! nothing had the least effect on the unconscious child.

'She ought not to have come with us,' said Marjorie, half aloud, as she kissed her cousin's forehead tenderly. 'She isn't as tough as we are, and, oh! I do hope the fright hasn't killed her! Estelle! Estelle dear!

Do wake up. There is no danger now. We are quite safe here; we are indeed, if only you would believe it.'

But there was no sign of consciousness; not a word she said was heard.

'I wish I had some water,' sighed Marjorie. 'I am sure a little cold water would make her wake, and refresh her. I know it always woke me when Alan put the cold sponge on my face, on those horrid winter mornings when he would go out early into the snow.'

Her cousin's fainting-fit, and the dread of what it might mean, had driven all recollection of the men and dogs, and their own escape, clean out of her head. Her only fear was that little, delicate, nervous Estelle might have been killed by all that had happened. Could she be dead? She was so terribly limp and still. Oh, if there were only something she could do! Anything would be better than sitting waiting for somebody to come. Yet the thought of leaving her cousin never so much as occurred to her. She bent over her again, and began rubbing the soft little hands with greater energy, till the sound of hastening footsteps gladdened her heart.

'A whole lot of them are coming,' Alan called out as he ran up the pa.s.sage. 'Father, and Aunt Betty, and Mademoiselle, and the whole lot of them. Is she any better? I say, is she insensible still?' His face became alarmed and grave. 'What a fool I was to let her come with us!'

There was no time for lamentations, however. Colonel De Bohun and Mademoiselle were running towards them, followed by Aunt Betty herself, looking pale and anxious. There was no lack of helping, loving hands now to carry the unconscious little girl to where she could receive every attention. Colonel De Bohun lifted her in his arms, and Aunt Betty, finding that cold water and strong smelling salts had no effect, desired that she should be taken to her own room and the doctor sent for.

'Come with me,' said Alan, when he and Marjorie were left alone. 'It's no use crying. I'm awfully cut up too, but I do believe it isn't anything more than a faint. Estelle will be all right, you see. It is hard luck her fainting like that, for we had got out of the sc.r.a.pe jolly well. Don't you think so?'

'Oh, yes!' returned Marjorie, still feeling rather shaky with the fright she had had about her cousin. 'If only Estelle had not fainted, it would have been very exciting and jolly fun.'

'So it was! You come along to the turret, and let's talk this over. I've a heap to tell you, but'--and he gazed earnestly into her face--'you will promise you won't say a word till I give you leave?'

Marjorie promised, and the brother and sister betook themselves to the little turret chamber. There was an ancient oak settle at one end of the dingy little room, which had a horsehair cushion, rather worn and threadbare, but still comfortable.

(_Continued on page 87._)

THE DAISY.

'I am only a poor little Daisy,' it said, 'Not tall like the Lily, nor like the Rose red; 'Mid the flowers of the wealthy I never am seen, I have only to blossom each day on the green.

'The Violet has fragrance, the Rose and the Pink; The Primrose is sweet by the river's green brink; The gold of the Cowslip is bright on the sea-- All these have a sweetness not granted to me.'

But into the meadows a child strayed one day, She pa.s.sed by the Lily and Rose on the way; Nor gathered the Primrose, the Violet blue, But went to the field where the small Daisy grew.

And all through the hours of that bright sunny day, Where the sweet Daisy blossomed she lingered to play; And the Daisy was glad when, at even's soft fall, She said that its blossom was sweetest of all.

PUZZLERS FOR WISE HEADS.

4.--CHARADE.

My first is very rapid; my second is a beautiful tree; and my whole is used for cement.

C. J. B.

[_Answer on page_ 115.]

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES ON PAGE 51.

2.--Locke. Wordsworth. Swift.

Bacon. Steele. Scott.

Burns. Lamb. Goldsmith.

3.--1. Hereford. 3. Denver. 6. Pekin.

2. Venice. 4. Milan. 7. Bergen.

5. Berlin.

CROCODILES IN CENTRAL AFRICA.

Crocodiles are very plentiful on the sh.o.r.es of the vast lakes of Central Africa, and the English people living in those parts do not seem to mind them much. One lady wrote home a few weeks ago: 'We went for a swim in Lake Nyasa yesterday. The water was beautifully blue and warm. We took three of our native school-girls to drive away the crocodiles.'

One of the crew of the mission steamer, _Chauncy Maples_, lately found eighty-seven crocodile eggs in a hole on the beach near Likoma; the mother, after laying them, had covered them all over with sand, and then had gone away and left the eggs to be hatched by the hot sun. The man took some of the eggs and soon was able to announce, proudly, that he had 'sixteen little crocodiles on board, all healthy and snappy!'

On landing at a mission station some days later, five of these little crocodiles were sent up in a paraffin tin to be inspected by the mission ladies, who p.r.o.nounced them to be 'charming little beasts.'

PEEPS INTO NATURE'S NURSERIES.

III.--THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE COMMON EEL.

We meet people now and then who tell us that, in these scientific days, all the poetry and mystery of Nature is being destroyed. This is not only untrue, but stupid. All that science has done is to subst.i.tute truth for legend, and truth is generally more beautiful and wonderful than fiction. Those who will turn to the great Book of Nature humbly, and with an open mind, will learn nothing but what is helpful and good to know.

The story which I am now about to relate is full of strangeness, far more so than our forebears ever suspected. Thus, in many parts of rural England even to-day, if you ask old grey-beards where eels come from, they will tell you that they grow out of the hair dropped from the tails of horses which come to drink at the horse-pond. After long soaking these hairs, they say, become endowed with life, and turn to worms known as 'hair-eels,' because they are so thin. In course of time they grow into fully developed eels!--and this was solemnly believed, even by educated people, throughout the length and breadth of the land, until a few years ago.

The true story is not easy to tell, because it had to be put together bit by bit. Thus it began in a suspicion of the truth. So long ago as 1864 a guess was made that certain curious, very rare, and extremely fragile fishes were really young eels, in spite of the fact that they did not in the least resemble eels such as we know; and so the matter rested till 1896, when the guess was confirmed. The little creatures of which we speak are almost transparent, very flat from side to side; they have ridiculously tiny heads, and no fins, except a fringe running from the middle of the back, round the tail, and forwards to the middle of the under surface of the body. They are so transparent that the spine and blood-vessels can be plainly seen against the light. Their strange history was discovered by some scientific men in Italy, who found that sometimes mighty currents boil up from the depths of the Straits of Messina, bringing with them samples of the strange inhabitants of those dark waters, and among these were hundreds of our little fish. Many of these were quite unhurt, and being placed in an aquarium, throve wonderfully; wonderfully in a double sense, for it was found that as they grew older so they grew smaller and smaller. But as they shrank in size, so they became less transparent and more round. At last this topsy-turvy growth came to an end, and they started growing bigger again, and lo! as the days sped on, these strange water-babies slowly revealed themselves: they were young eels! More than this, they proved to be nothing less than 'elvers'--long esteemed the daintiest of dishes by those who prize delicate food.

Thus ends Chapter I. of our story. Chapter II. is scarcely less interesting. The deep sea is the eel's nursery; not deep sea in the ordinary sense, but so deep that no light penetrates. Here, in the stillness and darkness that exceeds that of the darkest night, these little children of Neptune pa.s.s their earliest days. By the time they have reached the elver stage, they have made their way, guided only by instinct, from the deep sea to the surface, and thence to the mouths of rivers; these they ascend in millions, and in their endeavour to get into fresh water, they have to overcome obstacles such as would deter most boys and girls. They climb vertical walls and flood-gates, and even leave the water and wriggle their way overland at night amid the dewy gra.s.s till they come to water again. Such migrations have long been known as 'Eel-fairs,' and fishermen at this time take them by the ton.

In 1886, for example, more than three tons were taken from the Gloucester district. Now, it takes upwards of fourteen thousand baby eels to weigh a pound; how many eels are there in three tons? There is a sum for you! Those that escape grow up to furnish the 'eel-pies' and stewed eels which some people find so toothsome. In 1885 the annual consumption of eels was estimated to be at least one thousand six hundred and fifty tons, with a total value of 130,000_l._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eels.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stages in Growth of young Eel.]