Quick Action Part 46

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-gra.s.s 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 p.r.o.nounced.

After a little searching he discovered the huge tree, far towering above oak and pine and palm, set with l.u.s.trous cl.u.s.ters, 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 b.u.t.terflies 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-gra.s.s 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 h.e.l.l 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?"

Pink with excitement she said breathlessly: "Did you bring _dynamite_?"

"Didn't _you_?"

"I--I never even thought of it. F-fire crackers frighten me. I thought it would be all I could do to fire off my shot-gun." And she bit her lip with vexation.

"Why," he said, "it would take a gang of men a week to cut through this Causeway, besides building a coffer-dam." He looked at her curiously.

"How did _you_ expect to begin operations all alone?"

"I--I expected to dig."

He looked at her delicate little hands:

"You meant to dig your way through with pick and shovel?"

"Yes--if it took a year."

"And how did you expect to construct your coffer-dam?"

"I didn't know about a coffer-dam," she admitted, blushing. After a moment she lifted her pretty, distressed eyes to his: "I--I had no knowledge--only courage," she said.... "And I needed money."

A responsive flush of sympathy and pity pa.s.sed over him; she was so plucky, so adorably helpless. Even now he knew she was unconscious of the peril into which her confidence and folly had led her--a peril averted only by the mere accident of his own arrival.

He said lightly: "Shall we try to solve this thing now? Shall we take a chance, set our charges, and blow a hole in this Causeway big enough to drain that water off in an hour?"

"Could you do _that_?" she exclaimed, delighted.

"I think so."

"Then tell me what to do to help you."

He turned toward her, hesitated, controlling the impulsive reply.

"To help me," he said, smilingly, "please keep away from the dynamite."