In Search of the Unknown Part 39

"'Isn't there?'

"'Why, no!'

"My relief was genuine, but I thought of the rifle and looked suspiciously out to sea.

"'What's the Winchester for?' I asked.

"'Listen, and I will explain. Papa has found out--how, I do not exactly understand--that there is in the waters of the Gulf Stream the body of a thermosaurus. The creature must have been alive within a year or so. The impenetrable scale-armor that covers its body has, as far as papa knows, prevented its disintegration. We know that it is there still, or was there within a few months. Papa has reports and sworn depositions from steamer captains and seamen from a dozen different vessels, all corroborating one another in essential details.

These stories, of course, get into the newspapers--sea-serpent stories--but papa knows that they confirm his theory that the huge body of this reptile is swinging along somewhere in the Gulf Stream.'

"She opened her sunshade and held it over her. I noticed that she deigned to give me the benefit of about one-eighth of it.

"'Your duty with that rifle is this: if we are fortunate enough to see the body of the thermosaurus come floating by, you are to take good aim and fire--fire rapidly every bullet in the magazine; then reload and fire again, and reload and fire as long as you have any cartridges left.'

"'A self-feeding Maxim is what I should have,' I said, with gentle sarcasm. 'Well, and suppose I make a sieve of this big lizard?'

"'Do you see these rings in the sand?' she asked.

"Sure enough, somebody had driven heavy piles deep into the sand all around us, and to the tops of these piles were attached steel rings, half buried under the spear-gra.s.s. We sat almost exactly in the centre of a circle of these rings.

"'The reason is this,' said Daisy; 'every bullet in your cartridges is steel-tipped and armor-piercing. To the base of each bullet is attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a shot from a life-saver's mortar spins out and carries the life-line to a wrecked ship. The end of each coil of wire is attached to that cylinder under the magazine of your rifle. As soon as the sh.e.l.l is automatically ejected this wire flies out also. A bit of scarlet tape is fixed to the end, so that it will be easy to pick up. There is also a snap-clasp on the end, and this clasp fits those rings that you see in the sand. Now, when you begin firing, it is my duty to run and pick up the wire ends and attach them to the rings. Then, you see, we have the body of the thermosaurus full of bullets, every bullet anch.o.r.ed to the sh.o.r.e by tiny wires, each of which could easily hold a ton's strain.'

"I looked at her in amazement.

"'Then,' she added, calmly, 'we have captured the thermosaurus.'

"'Your father,' said I, at length, 'must have spent years of labor over this preparation.'

"'It is the work of a lifetime,' she said, simply.

"My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.

"'It must not fail,' she added.

"'But--but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,' I ventured.

"Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.

"'Ah, you don't know,' she said, 'what else papa has discovered. Would you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream--a genuine loop--that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off the coast, but n.o.body imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go with him so much!'

"'This,' said I, 'is most astonishing.'

"She leaned enthusiastically towards me, her lovely face aglow.

"'Isn't it?' she said; 'and to think that you and papa and I are the only people in the whole world who know this!'

"To be included in such a triology was very delightful.

"'Papa is writing the whole thing--I mean about the currents. He also has in preparation sixteen volumes on the thermosaurus. He said this morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in three years.'

"'Let us first,' said I, laughing, 'catch our thermosaurus.'

"'We must not fail,' she said, wistfully.

"'We shall not fail,' I said, 'for I promise to sit on this sand-hill as long as I live--until a thermosaurus appears--if that is your wish, Miss Holroyd.'

"Our eyes met for an instant. She did not chide me, either, for not looking at the ocean. Her eyes were bluer, anyway.

"'I suppose,' she said, bending her head and absently pouring sand between her fingers--'I suppose you think me a blue-stocking, or something odious?'

"'Not exactly,' I said. There was an emphasis in my voice that made her color. After a moment she laid the sunshade down, still open.

"'May I hold it?' I asked.

"She nodded almost imperceptibly.

"The ocean had turned a deep marine blue, verging on purple, that heralded a scorching afternoon. The wind died away; the odor of cedar and sweet-bay hung heavy in the air.

"In the sand at our feet an iridescent flower-beetle crawled, its metallic green-and-blue wings burning like a spark. Great gnats, with filmy, glittering wings, danced aimlessly above the young golden-rod; burnished crickets, inquisitive, timid, ran from under chips of driftwood, waved their antennae at us, and ran back again. One by one the marbled tiger-beetles tumbled at our feet, dazed from the exertion of an aerial flight, then scrambled and ran a little way, or darted into the wire gra.s.s, where great, brilliant spiders eyed them askance from their gossamer hammocks.

"Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back among the waves. Strings of black surf-ducks pa.s.sed, their strong wings tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled from the breakers into lonely flight towards the horizon.

"We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water's edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading after the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the mystery of waiting for that something that all await--what is it? love? death? or only the miracle of another morrow?--troubled me with vague restlessness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a shadow, an the shadow is sadness.

"And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye on the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop.

"About four o'clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter-tent, for which I was unaffectedly grateful.

"After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting.

"'You wouldn't ruin the landscape here, would you?' I asked.

"'Ruin it!' repeated Frisby, nervously. 'It's ruined now; there ain't a place to stick a bill.'

"'The snipe stick bills--in the sand,' I said, flippantly.

"There was no humor about Frisby. 'Do they?' he asked.

"I moved with a certain impatience.

"'Bills,' said Frisby, 'give spice an' variety to nature. They break the monotony of the everlastin' green and what-you-may-call-its.'

"I glared at him.

"'Bills,' he continued, 'are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir.

Sign-paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I guess I've stuck more bills onto New York State than ennybody.'

"'Have you?' I said, angrily.