"There is something weird about this whole proceeding," I observed to the pretty stenographer next morning.
"These pies will be weird if you don't stop talking to me," she said, opening the doors of Professor Farrago's portable camping-oven and peeping in at the fragrant pastry.
The professor had gone off somewhere into the woods early that morning. As he was not in the habit of talking to himself, the services of Miss Barrison were not required. Before he started, however, he came to her with a request for a dozen pies, the construction of which he asked if she understood. She had been to cooking-school in more prosperous days, and she mentioned it; so at his earnest solicitation she undertook to bake for him twelve apple-pies; and she was now attempting it, assisted by advice from me.
"Are they burned?" I asked, sniffing the air.
"No, they are not burned, Mr. Gilland, but my finger is," she retorted, stepping back to examine the damage.
I offered sympathy and witch-hazel, but she would have none of my offerings, and presently returned to her pies.
"We can't eat all that pastry," I protested.
"Professor Farrago said they were not for us to eat," she said, dusting each pie with powdered sugar.
"Well, what are they for? The dog? Or are they simply objets d'art to adorn the shanty—"
"You annoy me," she said.
"The pies annoy me; won't you tell me what they're for?"
"I have a pretty fair idea what they're for," she observed, tossing her head. "Haven't you?"
"No. What?"
"These pies are for bait."
"To bait hooks with?" I exclaimed.
"Hooks! No, you silly man. They're for baiting the cage. He means to trap these transparent creatures in a cage baited with pie."
She laughed scornfully; inserted the burned tip of her finger in her mouth and stood looking at me defiantly like a flushed and bright-eyed school-girl.
"You think you're teasing me," she said; "but you do not realize what a singularly slow-minded young man you are."
I stopped laughing. "How did you come to the conclusion that pies were to be used for such a purpose?" I asked.
"I deduce," she observed, with an airy wave of her disengaged hand.
"Your deductions are weird—like everything else in this vicinity. Pies to catch invisible monsters? Pooh!"
"You're not particularly complimentary, are you?" she said.
"Not particularly; but I could be, with you for my inspiration. I could even be enthusiastic—"
"No—about your eyes."
"You are very frivolous—for a scientist," she said, scornfully; "please subdue your enthusiasm and bring me some wood. This fire is almost out."
When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table.
"Never!" I cried, revolted.
"Then I suppose I must do them—"
She looked pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it.
"I'll do the dishes," I said.
Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I reflected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupefied by unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to cool.
"There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you.... You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also expected to do general housework."
"I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you know."
She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted.
"How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own dishes. I'm going for a stroll."
"May I join—"
"You may not! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover me."
I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a huge live-oak.
A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer, and I cast about for something to occupy me.
First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up, regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep again. Never a flop of tail to indicate gratitude for blandishments, never the faintest symptom of canine appreciation.
Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through the vista of trees the pink shirt-waist of the pretty stenographer glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness.
From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye.
"I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered.
After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three feet of a pink shirt-waist.
"I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten—"
"I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably.
"How is your finger?" I asked.
She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at the tip.
"Does it hurt?" I inquired.
"Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool—"
After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning."
"I am determined," said I, "to expel the fire from your finger if it takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention.
For a while she talked, making innocent observations concerning the tropical foliage surrounding us. Then silence crept in between us, accentuated by the brooding stillness of the forest.
"I am afraid your hands are growing tired," she said, considerately.
I denied it.
Through the vista of palms we could see the lake, blue as a violet, sparkling with silvery sunshine. In the intense quiet the splash of leaping mullet sounded distinctly.
Once a tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the stillness of the wilderness grew more intense.
We had been sitting there for a long while without exchanging a word, dreamily watching the ripple of the azure water, when all at once there came a scurrying patter of feet through the forest, and, looking up, I beheld the hound-dog, tail between his legs, bearing down on us at lightning speed. I rose instantly.
"What is the matter with the dog?" cried the pretty stenographer. "Is he going mad, Mr. Gilland?"
"Something has scared him," I exclaimed, as the dog, eyes like lighted candles, rushed frantically between my legs and buried his head in Miss Barrison's lap.
"Poor doggy!" she said, smoothing the collapsed pup; "poor, p-oor little beast! Did anything scare him? Tell aunty all about it."
When a dog flees without yelping he's a badly frightened creature. I instinctively started back towards the camp whence the beast had fled, and before I had taken a dozen steps Miss Barrison was beside me, carrying the dog in her arms.
"I've an idea," she said, under her breath.
"What?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the camp.
"It's this: I'll wager that we find those pies gone!"
"Pies gone?" I repeated, perplexed; "what makes you think—"
"They are gone!" she exclaimed. "Look!"
I gaped stupidly at the rough pine table where the pies had stood in three neat rows of four each. And then, in a moment, the purport of this robbery flashed upon my senses.
"The transparent creatures!" I gasped.
"Hush!" she whispered, clinging to the trembling dog in her arms.
I listened. I could hear nothing, see nothing, yet slowly I became convinced of the presence of something unseen—something in the forest close by, watching us out of invisible eyes.
A chill, settling along my spine, crept upward to my scalp, until every separate hair wiggled to the roots. Miss Barrison was pale, but perfectly calm and self-possessed.
"Let us go in-doors," I said, as steadily as I could.
"Very well," she replied.
I held the door open; she entered with the dog; I followed, closing and barring the door, and then took my station at the window, rifle in hand.
There was not a sound in the forest. Miss Barrison laid the dog on the floor and quietly picked up her pad and pencil. Presently she was deep in a report of the phenomena, her pencil flying, leaf after leaf from the pad fluttering to the floor.
Nor did I at the window change my position of scared alertness, until I was aware of her hand gently touching my elbow to attract my attention, and her soft voice at my ear—
"You don't suppose by any chance that the dog ate those pies?"
I collected my tumultuous thoughts and turned to stare at the dog.
"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected, musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad, thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling down, measured the dog.
"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."
Inspired by her coolness and perfect composure, I set the rifle in the corner and opened the door. Sunlight fell in bars through the quiet woods; nothing stirred on land or water save the great, yellow-striped butterflies that fluttered and soared and floated above the flowering thickets bordering the jungle.
The heat became intense; Miss Barrison went to her room to change her gown for a lighter one; I sat down under a live-oak, eyes and ears strained for any sign of our invisible neighbors.
When she emerged in the lightest and filmiest of summer gowns, she brought the camera with her; and for a while we took pictures of each other, until we had used up all but one film.
Desiring to possess a picture of Miss Barrison and myself seated together, I tied a string to the shutter-lever and attached the other end of the string to the dog, who had resumed his interrupted slumbers. At my whistle he jumped up nervously, snapping the lever, and the picture was taken.
With such innocent and harmless pastime we whiled away the afternoon. She made twelve more apple-pies. I mounted guard over them. And we were just beginning to feel a trifle uneasy about Professor Farrago, when he appeared, tramping sturdily through the forest, green umbrella and butterfly-net under one arm, shot-gun and cyanide-jar under the other, and his breast all criss-crossed with straps, from which dangled field-glasses, collecting-boxes, and botanizing-tins—an inspiring figure indeed—the embodied symbol of science indomitable, triumphant!
We hailed him with three guilty cheers; the dog woke up with a perfunctory bark—the first sound I had heard from him since he yelped his disapproval of me on the lagoon.
Miss Barrison produced three bowls full of boiling water and dropped three pellets of concentrated soup-meat into them, while I prepared coffee. And in a few moments our simple dinner was ready—the red ants had been dusted from the biscuits, the spiders chased off the baked beans, the scorpions shaken from the napkins, and we sat down at the rough, improvised table under the palms.
The professor gave us a brief but modest account of his short tour of exploration. He had brought back a new species of orchid, several undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed. He appeared, however, to be tired and singularly depressed, and presently we learned why.
It seemed that he had gone straight to that section of the forest where he had hitherto always found signs of the transparent and invisible creatures which he had determined to capture, and he had not found a single trace of them.
"It alarms me," he said, gravely. "If they have deserted this region, it might take a lifetime to locate them again in this wilderness."
Then, very quietly, sinking her voice instinctively, as though the unseen might be at our very elbows listening, Miss Barrison recounted the curious adventure which had befallen the dog and the first batch of apple-pies.
With visible and increasing excitement the professor listened until the very end. Then he struck the table with clinched fist—a resounding blow which set the concentrated soup dancing in the bowls and scattered the biscuits and the industrious red ants in every direction.
"Eureka!" he whispered. "Miss Barrison, your deduction was not only perfectly reasonable, but brilliant. You are right; the pies are for that very purpose. I conceived the idea when I first came here. Again and again the pies that my guide made out of dried apples disappeared in a most astonishing and mysterious manner when left to cool. At length I determined to watch them every second; and did so, with the result that late one afternoon I was amazed to see a pie slowly rise from the table and move swiftly away through the air about four feet above the ground, finally disappearing into a tangle of jasmine and grape-vine.
"The apparently automatic flight of that pie solved the problem; these transparent creatures cannot resist that delicacy. Therefore I decided to bait the cage for them this very night—Look! What's the matter with that dog?"
The dog suddenly bounded into the air, alighted on all fours, ears, eyes, and muzzle concentrated on a point directly behind us.
"Good gracious! The pies!" faltered Miss Barrison, half rising from her seat; but the dog rushed madly into her skirts, scrambling for protection, and she fell back almost into my arms.
Clasping her tightly, I looked over my shoulder; the last pie was snatched from the table before my eyes and I saw it borne swiftly away by something unseen, straight into the deepening shadows of the forest.
The professor was singularly calm, even slightly ironical, as he turned to me, saying:
"Perhaps if you relinquish Miss Barrison she may be able to free herself from that dog."
I did so immediately, and she deposited the cowering dog in my arms. Her face had suddenly become pink.
I passed the dog on to Professor Farrago, dumping it viciously into his lap—a proceeding which struck me as resembling a pastime of extreme youth known as "button, button, who's got the button?"
The professor examined the animal gravely, feeling its pulse, counting its respirations, and finally inserting a tentative finger in an attempt to examine its tongue. The dog bit him.
"Ouch! It's a clear case of fright," he said, gravely. "I wanted a dog to aid me in trailing these remarkable creatures, but I think this dog of yours is useless, Gilland."
"It's given us warning of the creatures' presence twice already," I argued.
"Poor little thing," said Miss Barrison, softly; "I don't know why, but I love that dog.... He has eyes like yours, Mr. Gilland—"
Exasperated, I rose from the table. "He's got eyes like holes burned in a blanket!" I said. "And if ever a flicker of intelligence lighted them I have failed to observe it."
The professor regarded me dreamily. "We ought to have more pies," he observed. "Perhaps if you carried the oven into the shanty—"
"Certainly," said Miss Barrison; "we can lock the door while I make twelve more pies."
I carried the portable camping-oven into the cabin, connected the patent asbestos chimney-pipes, and lighted the fire. And in a few minutes Miss Barrison, sleeves rolled up and pink apron pinned under her chin, was busily engaged in rolling pie-crust, while Professor Farrago measured out spices and set the dried apples to soak.
The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the forest as I stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water.
For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the Southern whippoorwill's incessant call.
At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite distances.
And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but ceaseless—the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to a steady monotone.
Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.
I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and resumed her attitude of contented indifference.
"Where is the professor?" I asked.
"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."
"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed, closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of rain."
"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy! your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."
So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional spider.
"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away—"
"I was going anyhow—"
"Please don't."
"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.
"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.
"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.
"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."
"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"
There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.
"How is your burned finger?" I asked.
She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.
"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance at the professor's closed door.
"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the finger-tips—"
"You tried that this afternoon."
"But the dog interrupted us—"
"Interrupted you. Besides—"
"What?"
"I don't think you ought to," she said.
Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint whisper and crackle of the fire.
A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle within.
"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver! And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us all."
She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe, carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious fragrance filled the room.
"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to lift them out."
Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it again.
"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her handkerchief.
I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled, some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to the glass.
"I don't suppose you know that the antennæ of that silvery-winged moth are distinctly pectinate," I said.
"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard College."
"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You are a Doctor of Entomology?"
"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."
She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to self-sustenance."
She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.
"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose I'd flirt with you if I was?"
She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem of Andrew Lang:
Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent—I don't know why.
The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.
Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.
"That's curious," I said.
"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"
"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"
A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were feeling the pane—a gentle rubbing—then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.
"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.
The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.
We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and carried them into my room.
Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand, and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her room and softly closed the door.
And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other, eating slice after slice of apple-pie.
Dawn came—the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long, rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering, like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed, drooping fronds embroidered with dew.
For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned, broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with sinuous, silver flashes.
"Good-morning," said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.
Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.
"Too much perfume," she said—"too much like ylang-ylang in a department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning."
"Are you criticising the wild jasmine?" I asked.
"I'm criticising an exotic smell. Am I not permitted to comment on the tropics?"
Fishing out a cedar log from the lumber-stack, I fell to chopping it vigorously. The axe-strokes made a cheerful racket through the woods.
"Did you hear anything last night after you retired?" I asked.
"Something was at my window—something that thumped softly and seemed to be feeling all over the glass. To tell you the truth, I was silly enough to remain dressed all night."
"You don't look it," I said.
"Oh, when daylight came I had a chance," she added, laughing.
"All the same," said I, leaning on the axe and watching her, "you are about the coolest and pluckiest woman I ever knew."
"We were all in the same fix," she said, modestly.
"No, we were not. Now I'll tell you the truth—my hair stood up the greater part of the night. You are looking upon a poltroon, Miss Barrison."
"Then there was something at your window, too?"
"Something? A dozen! They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing—as though from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to play the coward."
"Most people are brave for that reason," she said.
The dog, who had slept under my bunk, and who had contributed to my entertainment by sighing and moaning all night, now appeared ready for business—business in his case being the operation of feeding. I presented him with a concentrated tablet, which he cautiously investigated and then rolled on.
"Nice testimonial for the people who concocted it," I said, in disgust. "I wish I had an egg."
"There are some concentrated egg tablets in the shanty," said Miss Barrison; but the idea was not attractive.
"I refuse to fry a pill for breakfast," I said, sullenly, and set the coffee-pot on the coals.
In spite of the dewy beauty of the morning, breakfast was not a cheerful function. Professor Farrago appeared, clad in sun-helmet and khaki. I had seldom seen him depressed; but he was now, and his very efforts to disguise it only emphasized his visible anxiety.
His preparations for the day, too, had an ominous aspect to me. He gave his orders and we obeyed, instinctively suppressing questions. First, he and I transported all personal luggage of the company to the big electric launch—Miss Barrison's effects, his, and my own. His private papers, the stenographic reports, and all memoranda were tied up together and carried aboard.
Then, to my surprise, two weeks' concentrated rations for two and mineral water sufficient for the same period were stowed away aboard the launch. Several times he asked me whether I knew how to run the boat, and I assured him that I did.
In a short time nothing was left ashore except the bare furnishings of the cabin, the female wearing-apparel, the steel cage and chemicals which I had brought, and the twelve apple-pies—the latter under lock and key in my room.
As the preparations came to an end, the professor's gentle melancholy seemed to deepen. Once I ventured to ask him if he was indisposed, and he replied that he had never felt in better physical condition.
Presently he bade me fetch the pies; and I brought them, and, at a sign from him, placed them inside the steel cage, closing and locking the door.
"I believe," he said, glancing from Miss Barrison to me, and from me to the dog—"I believe that we are ready to start."
He went to the cabin and locked the door on the outside, pocketing the key.
Then he backed up to the steel cage, stooped and lifted his end as I lifted mine, and together we started off through the forest, bearing the cage between us as porters carry a heavy piece of luggage.
Miss Barrison came next, carrying the trousseau, the tank, hose, and chemicals; and the dog followed her—probably not from affection for us, but because he was afraid to be left alone.
We walked in silence, the professor and I keeping an instinctive lookout for snakes; but we encountered nothing of that sort. On every side, touching our shoulders, crowded the closely woven and impenetrable tangle of the jungle; and we threaded it along a narrow path which he, no doubt, had cut, for the machete marks were still fresh, and the blazes on hickory, live-oak, and palm were all wet with dripping sap, and swarming with eager, brilliant butterflies.
At times across our course flowed shallow, rapid streams of water, clear as crystal, and most alluring to the thirsty.
"There's fever in every drop," said the professor, as I mentioned my thirst; "take the bottled water if you mean to stay a little longer."
"Stay where?" I asked.
"On earth," he replied, tersely; and we marched on.
The beauty of the tropics is marred somewhat for me; under all the fresh splendor of color death lurks in brilliant tints. Where painted fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron, where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined with white creeps—where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless; where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange undulates along a mossy log.
Thinking of these things, and watchful lest, unawares, terror unfold from some blossoming and leafy covert, I scarcely noticed the beauty of the glade we had entered—a long oval, cross-barred with sunshine which fell on hedges of scrub-palmetto, chin high, interlaced with golden blossoms of the jasmine. And all around, like pillars supporting a high green canopy above a throne, towered the silvery stems of palms fretted with pale, rose-tinted lichens and hung with draperies of grape-vine.
"This is the place," said Professor Farrago.
His quiet, passionless voice sounded strange to me; his words seemed strange, too, each one heavily weighted with hidden meaning.
We set the cage on the ground; he unlocked and opened the steel-barred door, and, kneeling, carefully arranged the pies along the centre of the cage.
"I have a curious presentiment," he said, "that I shall not come out of this experiment unscathed."
"Don't, for Heaven's sake, say that!" I broke out, my nerves on edge again.
"Why not?" he asked, surprised. "I am not afraid."
"Not afraid to die?" I demanded, exasperated.
"Who spoke of dying?" he inquired, mildly. "What I said was that I do not expect to come out of this affair unscathed."
I did not comprehend his meaning, but I understood the reproof conveyed.
He closed and locked the cage door again and came towards us, balancing the key across the palm of his hand.
Miss Barrison had seated herself on the leaves; I stood back as the professor sat down beside her; then, at a gesture from him, took the place he indicated on his left.
"Before we begin," he said, calmly, "there are several things you ought to know and which I have not yet told you. The first concerns the feminine wearing apparel which Mr. Gilland brought me."
He turned to Miss Barrison and asked her whether she had brought a complete outfit, and she opened the bundle on her knees and handed it to him.
"I cannot," he said, "delicately explain in so many words what use I expect to make of this apparel. Nor do I yet know whether I shall have any use at all for it. That can only be a theoretical speculation until, within a few more hours, my theory is proven or disproven—and," he said, suddenly turning on me, "my theory concerning these invisible creatures is the most extraordinary and audacious theory ever entertained by man since Columbus presumed that there must lie somewhere a hidden continent which nobody had ever seen."
He passed his hand over his protruding forehead, lost for a moment in deepest reflection. Then, "Have you ever heard of the Sphyx?" he asked.
"It seems to me that Ponce de Leon wrote of something—" I began, hesitating.
"Yes, the famous lines in the third volume which have set so many wise men guessing. You recall them:
"'And there, alas! within sound of the Fountain of Youth whose waters tint the skin till the whole body glows softly like the petal of a rose—there, alas! in the new world already blooming, The Eternal Enigma I beheld, in the flesh living; yet it faded even as I looked, although I swear it lived and breathed. This is the Sphyx.'"
A silence; then I said, "Those lines are meaningless to me."
"Not to me," said Miss Barrison, softly.
The professor looked at her. "Ah, child! Ever subtler, ever surer—the Eternal Enigma is no enigma to you."
"What is the Sphyx?" I asked.
"Have you read De Soto? Or Goya?"
"Yes, both. I remember now that De Soto records the Syachas legend of the Sphyx—something about a goddess—"
"Not a goddess," said Miss Barrison, her lips touched with a smile.
"Sometimes," said the professor, gently. "And Goya said:
"'It has come to my ears while in the lands of the Syachas that the Sphyx surely lives, as bolder and more curious men than I may, God willing, prove to the world hereafter.'"
"But what is the Sphyx?" I insisted.
"For centuries wise men and savants have asked each other that question. I have answered it for myself; I am now to prove it, I trust."
His face darkened, and again and again he stroked his heavy brow.
"If anything occurs," he said, taking my hand in his left and Miss Barrison's hand in his right, "promise me to obey my wishes. Will you?"
"Yes," we said, together.
"If I lose my life, or—or disappear, promise me on your honor to get to the electric launch as soon as possible and make all speed northward, placing my private papers, the reports of Miss Barrison, and your own reports in the hands of the authorities in Bronx Park. Don't attempt to aid me; don't delay to search for me. Do you promise?"
"Yes," we breathed together.
He looked at us solemnly. "If you fail me, you betray me," he said.
We swore obedience.
"Then let us begin," he said, and he rose and went to the steel cage. Unlocking the door, he flung it wide and stepped inside, leaving the cage door open.
"The moment a single pie is disturbed," he said to me, "I shall close the steel door from the inside, and you and Miss Barrison will then dump the rosium oxide and the strontium into the tank, clap on the lid, turn the nozzle of the hose on the cage, and spray it thoroughly. Whatever is invisible in the cage will become visible and of a faint rose color. And when the trapped creature becomes visible, hold yourselves ready to aid me as long as I am able to give you orders. After that either all will go well or all will go otherwise, and you must run for the launch." He seated himself in the cage near the open door.
I placed the steel tank near the cage, uncoiled the hose attachment, unscrewed the top, and dumped in the salts of strontium. Miss Barrison unwrapped the bottle of rosium oxide and loosened the cork. We examined this pearl-and-pink powder and shook it up so that it might run out quickly. Then Miss Barrison sat down, and presently became absorbed in a stenographic report of the proceedings up to date.
When Miss Barrison finished her report she handed me the bundle of papers. I stowed them away in my wallet, and we sat down together beside the tank.
Inside the cage Professor Farrago was seated, his spectacled eyes fixed on the row of pies. For a while, although realizing perfectly that our quarry was transparent and invisible, we unconsciously strained our eyes in quest of something stirring in the forest.
"I should think," said I, in a low voice, "that the odor of the pies might draw at least one out of the odd dozen that came rubbing up against my window last night."
"Hush! Listen!" she breathed. But we heard nothing save the snoring of the overfed dog at our feet.
"He'll give us ample notice by butting into Miss Barrison's skirts," I observed. "No need of our watching, professor."
The professor nodded. Presently he removed his spectacles and lay back against the bars, closing his eyes.
At first the forest silence seemed cheerful there in the flecked sunlight. The spotted wood-gnats gyrated merrily, chased by dragon-flies; the shy wood-birds hopped from branch to twig, peering at us in friendly inquiry; a lithe, gray squirrel, plumy tail undulating, rambled serenely around the cage, sniffing at the pastry within.
Suddenly, without apparent reason, the squirrel sprang to a tree-trunk, hung a moment on the bark, quivering all over, then dashed away into the jungle.
"Why did he act like that?" whispered Miss Barrison. And, after a moment: "How still it is! Where have the birds gone?"
In the ominous silence the dog began to whimper in his sleep and his hind legs kicked convulsively.
"He's dreaming—" I began.
The words were almost driven down my throat by the dog, who, without a yelp of warning, hurled himself at Miss Barrison and alighted on my chest, fore paws around my neck.
I cast him scornfully from me, but he scrambled back, digging like a mole to get under us.
"The transparent creatures!" whispered Miss Barrison. "Look! See that pie move!"
I sprang to my feet just as the professor, jamming on his spectacles, leaned forward and slammed the cage door.
"I've got one!" he shouted, frantically. "There's one in the cage! Turn on that hose!"
"Wait a second," said Miss Barrison, calmly, uncorking the bottle and pouring a pearly stream of rosium oxide into the tank. "Quick! It's fizzing! Screw on the top!"
In a second I had screwed the top fast, seized the hose, and directed a hissing cloud of vapor through the cage bars.
For a moment nothing was heard save the whistling rush of the perfumed spray escaping; a delicious odor of roses filled the air. Then, slowly, there in the sunshine, a misty something grew in the cage—a glistening, pearl-tinted phantom, imperceptibly taking shape in space—vague at first as a shred of lake vapor, then lengthening, rounding into flowing form, clearer, clearer.
"The Sphyx!" gasped the professor. "In the name of Heaven, play that hose!"
As he spoke the treacherous hose burst. A showery pillar of rose-colored vapor enveloped everything. Through the thickening fog for one brief instant a human form appeared like magic—a woman's form, flawless, exquisite as a statue, pure as marble. Then the swimming vapor buried it, cage, pies, and all.
We ran frantically around, the cage in the obscurity, appealing for instructions and feeling for the bars. Once the professor's muffled voice was heard demanding the wearing apparel, and I groped about and found it and stuffed it through the bars of the cage.
"Do you need help?" I shouted. There was no response. Staring around through the thickening vapor of rosium rolling in clouds from the overturned tank, I heard Miss Barrison's voice calling:
"I can't move! A transparent lady is holding me!"
Blindly I rushed about, arms outstretched, and the next moment struck the door of the cage so hard that the impact almost knocked me senseless. Clutching it to steady myself, it suddenly flew open. A rush of partly visible creatures passed me like a burst of pink flames, and in the midst, borne swiftly away on the crest of the outrush, the professor passed like a bolt shot from a catapult; and his last cry came wafted back to me from the forest as I swayed there, drunk with the stupefying perfume: "Don't worry! I'm all right!"
I staggered out into the clearer air towards a figure seen dimly through swirling vapor.
"Are you hurt?" I stammered, clasping Miss Barrison in my arms.
"No—oh no," she said, wringing her hands. "But the professor! I saw him! I could not scream; I could not move! They had him!"
"I saw him too," I groaned. "There was not one trace of terror on his face. He was actually smiling."
Overcome at the sublime courage of the man, we wept in each other's arms.
True to our promise to Professor Farrago, we made the best of our way northward; and it was not a difficult journey by any means, the voyage in the launch across Okeechobee being perfectly simple and the trail to the nearest railroad station but a few easy miles from the landing-place.
Shocking as had been our experience, dreadful as was the calamity which had not only robbed me of a life-long friend, but had also bereaved the entire scientific world, I could not seem to feel that desperate and hopeless grief which the natural decease of a close friend might warrant. No; there remained a vague expectancy which so dominated my sorrow that at moments I became hopeful—nay, sanguine, that I should one day again behold my beloved superior in the flesh. There was something so happy in his last smile, something so artlessly pleased, that I was certain no fear of impending dissolution worried him as he disappeared into the uncharted depth of the unknown Everglades.
I think Miss Barrison agreed with me, too. She appeared to be more or less dazed, which was, of course, quite natural; and during our return voyage across Okeechobee and through the lagoons and forests beyond she was very silent.
When we reached the railroad at Portulacca, a thrifty lemon-growing ranch on the Volusia and Chinkapin Railway, the first thing I did was to present my dog to the station-agent—but I was obliged to give him five dollars before he consented to accept the dog.
However, Miss Barrison interviewed the station-master's wife, a kindly, pitiful soul, who promised to be a good mistress to the creature. We both felt better after that was off our minds; we felt better still when the north-bound train rolled leisurely into the white glare of Portulacca, and presently rolled out again, quite as leisurely, bound, thank Heaven, for that abused aggregation of sinful boroughs called New York.
Except for one young man whom I encountered in the smoker, we had the train to ourselves, a circumstance which, curiously enough, appeared to increase Miss Barrison's depression, and my own as a natural sequence. The circumstances of the taking off of Professor Farrago appeared to engross her thoughts so completely that it made me uneasy during our trip out from Little Sprite—in fact it was growing plainer to me every hour that in her brief acquaintance with that distinguished scientist she had become personally attached to him to an extent that began to worry me. Her personal indignation at the caged Sphyx flared out at unexpected intervals, and there could be no doubt that her unhappiness and resentment were becoming morbid.
I spent an hour or two in the smoking compartment, tenanted only by a single passenger and myself. He was an agreeable young man, although, in the natural acquaintanceship that we struck up, I regretted to learn that he was a writer of popular fiction, returning from Fort Worth, where he had been for the sole purpose of composing a poem on Florida.
I have always, in common with other mentally balanced savants, despised writers of fiction. All scientists harbor a natural antipathy to romance in any form, and that antipathy becomes a deep horror if fiction dares to deal flippantly with the exact sciences, or if some degraded intellect assumes the warrantless liberty of using natural history as the vehicle for silly tales.
Never but once had I been tempted to romance in any form; never but once had sentiment interfered with a passionless transfer of scientific notes to the sanctuary of the unvarnished note-book or the cloister of the juiceless monograph. Nor have I the slightest approach to that superficial and doubtful quality known as literary skill. Once, however, as I sat alone in the middle of the floor, classifying my isopods, I was not only astonished but totally unprepared to find myself repeating aloud a verse that I myself had unconsciously fashioned: