Us and the Bottle Man Part 4

"I should think he might," I said, "after such experiences. What do you think it could have been that stared at him?"

"An octopus, most likely," Jerry said. "They have goggly black eyes; I've read it."

"But he said he'd never seen such eyes on any sea beast he knew of, and he's read as much as you have; that's sure."

"That treasure! Oh, my eye!" Jerry sighed. "Do you suppose he brought home hunks of it?"

"Just the same hunks that we dig up on Wecanicut, I suppose," I said.

"You mean you think he's making up the whole yarn?" Jerry asked.

"Well, even if he is, it's a mighty good one, and it might have happened to him, at that."

Greg looked up suddenly from beside me, and said:

"_I_ think the thing what stared at him was a mer-person."

"My child," said Jerry, "I believe you're right."

CHAPTER VI

Next day Jerry was well enough to walk around with a cane, and when he'd broken Father's second-best malacca stick by vaulting over the box border with it, we decided that he was quite all right, and the summer went on again as usual. Of course we wrote to the Bottle Man at once, and told him, as respectfully as we could, just what we thought of him for letting the native child interrupt him in such an exciting part. We also begged him to write again as soon as possible, and to choose a place where the inhabitants weren't likely to come with offerings. We kept waiting and waiting, and no letter came, so we settled ourselves to Grim Resignation, as Jerry said. It was worse than waiting for the next number of a serial story, because you're pretty certain when that will come, but we had no idea how long it would be before the Bottle Man wrote to us.

Aunt Ailsa still needed cheering up a good deal, and that kept us busy. The cheering was great fun for us, because it consisted mostly of picnics and long, long walks,--the kind where you take a stick and a kit-bag and eat your lunch under a hedge, like a tinker. We also wrote a story which we used to put in instalments under her plate at breakfast every other day. We took turns writing the story, and Greg's instalments always made Aunt Ailsa the most cheered up of all. The story was much too long to put in here, and rather ridiculous, besides.

By this time it was almost September, and asters were beginning to bloom in the garden and the hollyhocks were almost gone. Wecanicut was turning the dry, russetty color that it does late in the summer, and the harbor seemed bluer every day. Captain Moss took us out in the _Jolly Nancy_ one afternoon just for kindness--we didn't hire her at all. She is a sixteen-footer and quite fast, in spite of being rather broad in the beam. He let each of us steer her and told us a great many names of things on her, which I forgot immediately.

Jerry always remembers things like that and can talk about reef-cringles and topping-lift as if he really knew what they were for. We went quite far out and saw the Sea Monster from a different side in the distance, and tacked down to the other end of Wecanicut under the Fort guns.

It was when we got in from the gorgeous sail, with Greg carrying the little basket all made of twisted-up rope Captain Moss had done for him, that we found a big, square envelope lying on the hall table.

And, to our despair, supper was just ready and we couldn't read the letter till afterward. Supper was good, I must admit,--baked eggs, all crusty and b.u.t.tery on top, and m.u.f.fins, and cherry jam. We ate hugely, because of the _Jolly Nancy_ making us so hungry.

When we'd finished we went into Father's study, where he wasn't, and turned on the desk-light and got at the letter. I read it, while the boys crouched about expectantly. Here it is:

_Dear Comrades_:

I should have answered your frantic appeals for news of me long since, had I not been slavishly occupied in carrying out the demands of the Man of Torture from whom I am now completely released, praises be. I am even contemplating escape from Bluar Boor by stealth. But no doubt you have no desire for these modern details and are all agog to find out whether or not I met a wretched death at the bottom of the sea. I think you left me--or I left you--with a soft and hideous something resting upon my shoulder.

Sirs, it was a Hand, a webbed hand, and turning, I looked straight down into another pair of flat dark eyes. They belonged to a creature not as tall as I, and certainly not human in shape. Arms and legs it had, of a sort, and scales, also, and finny spines, and a soft slimy body. Then, through the door which led to the silver street, I saw more of the creatures, and more,--a soft, hurrying crowd patting over the ingot blocks which paved the road, peering in at the door, beckoning with webby fingers.

My helmet smothered the cry I gave as I struggled against the horrible resistance of the water toward the door. Out in the street the mer-crowd surrounded me, fingered my arms, looking at me with unfathomable, disc-like eyes, black as ink. With dawning comprehension it came over me that these creatures inhabited the desolate, sea-filled city, lived in the mighty golden halls that once had echoed to the footsteps of Peruvian kings, fared about the rich streets where coral now grew instead of tree and flower.

The things were speechless, with no seeming means of communication, and I saw, too, that they could not leave the sea-bottom, but walked upon it as we do upon earth, and could no more rise than we can leap into the air and swim upon it.

I tried to push my difficult way through the clinging swarm, who seemed friendly enough in a weird, inhuman way, but I could not pa.s.s through. Dimly through the swinging water I could see others coming from every carven doorway down the silent street. I thought then of the weights attached to me, and I decided to cut them loose at once and rise from the ghostly place, of which I had seen quite enough to suit me.

But I determined to take with me at least one thing from the vast mounds of treasure which held me breathless with utter bewilderment.

So I turned and with my long knife began prying from its doorway a ruby as large as my fist. Instantly, without warning, the creature nearest me raised its scaly hand in a flinging gesture, and I felt a hot and rushing pain just above my right elbow. I felt, too, a coldness of water spurting down my arm and clutched wildly at the sleeve of my diving-suit to seal the little hole which I saw in it.

Holding it tightly with my left hand, I slashed with my right at the creatures who were now moving upon me menacingly, pressing me close. If they forced me back into the doorway, all hope would be gone. I cut desperately at the fastenings that secured the weights; felt myself rising; felt my legs pull out from the clinging, slimy arms; looked down at them--a sea of bobbing smooth heads, of round, expressionless, black eyes; saw them waving their tentacle-like arms in fury; saw at last the dim, golden crest of the tallest tower below my feet; burst above the blessed sea-level and saw good blue waves slapping the bow of the brigantine drifting lazily down toward me.

I know nothing of the voyage home. I must have been poisoned by the missile, whatever it was, that the sea-creature flung at me. (I bear the scar to this day.) For I have no recollection of much more, until I sat in the library bow-window of my father's house, very tired and stiff and thoroughly thankful that the voyage was over. It was dark, and my mother sat sewing beside a shaded lamp and singing to herself. I fingered the book that lay beside me, on the window-seat, and said:

"Mother, did you keep the book just here all the time I was gone because you were sorry I went and wanted to remember me?"

She laughed, and said: "Yes, all the time while you were sailing to the Port of Stars. Come now to supper, my dear."

So I got up very stiffly, for I felt weak and dizzy still, and went with her. I said:

"I'm sorry, Mother, that after all I couldn't bring you any of the jewels."

Whereupon she laughed again and said something about "Cornelia" which I am too modest to repeat, but which, being scholars, you will know by heart, and said that she was glad enough to have me back at all.

Sirs, you cannot think how beautiful our little dining-room looked to me, with the old bra.s.s-handled highboy in the corner and the pots of flowers on the sill--far more beautiful than the fretted golden towers and gem-girdled walls of the City under the Sea.

So take my advice, young sirs, the advice of a man many years older than you bold young blades: don't you ever go listening to a half-breed Peruvian that comes slinking to your window, no matter how enticing may be his tales of treasure.

Your most faithful

BOTTLE MAN.

"_Do_ you think he dreamed it?" Jerry said.

"Whatever it was, he must have been glad to get back," I said, switching off the light so that we could talk in the dark, which is more creepy and pleasant.

"But the treasure!" Jerry said. "Do you suppose there ever was such treasure in the world? That's something like! Imagine finding gold trees and birds eating jewels on the Sea Monster! By the way, do you know about 'Cornelia'?"

I said I thought she had something to do with sitting on a hill and her children turning to stone one after the other, but Jerry said that was Niobe and that it was she who turned to stone, not the children. He has a fearfully long memory. So we put on the light again and looked it up in "The Reader's Handbook," because we didn't want to bother the grown-ups, and we found, of course, that she was the Roman lady who pointed at her sons and said, "These are my jewels!" when somebody asked her where her gold and ornaments were.

So naturally the Bottle Man didn't feel like repeating such a complimentary thing, being an un-stuck-up person, but we did think it was nice of his mother.

We put away the "Handbook" and made the room dark again and were arguing over all the exciting places in the Bottle Man's story, when Greg spoke up suddenly from the corner where we'd almost forgotten him.

"If _I_ found a thing like those mer-persons," he said drowsily, "I wouldn't let it bite me. I'd keep it in the bath-tub and teach it how to do things."

"Like your precious toad, I suppose," said Jerry. "Don't be idiotic."

So we all went to bed, and I, for one, dreamed about all kinds of glittering treasures and heaps of jewels each as big as your hat, and of our nice old Bottle Man, with his long white beard flowing in the wind.

And now comes the perfectly awful part.

CHAPTER VII