In Search of the Unknown Page 3

  III

  Towards sunset I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birdswere whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling indouble-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands belowthe rock.

  Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this,I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly camefrom Halyard's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me fromseeing the house itself.

  I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, andcautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-waytowards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, whensomething on the very top of the rock arrested my attention--a mandarkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew itcould not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face ofthe cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before Icould get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf--or, atleast, it seemed to--but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, sounexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all.

  However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side andmake my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Ofcourse, there was nothing there--not a trace of a human being, I mean.Something _had_ been there--a sea-otter, possibly--for the remains ofa freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone andtail.

  The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim,flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with thesplendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in thenoble, gray monotony of headland and sea.

  The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard aspink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that ledto the front porch of the house.

  There were two people on the porch--I heard their voices before I sawthem--and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them,a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me.

  "Come back!" cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply linedface, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped backquietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination.

  The man, who was reclining in an invalid's rolling-chair, clapped bothlarge, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along theporch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat onhis head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled.

  "I know who you are," he said, in his acid voice; "you're one of theZoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway."

  "It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied,irritated at his discourtesy.

  "Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'mobliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?"

  "Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied,sincerely.

  "Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you'veinterrupted us." Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neatgown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what shehad been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which madethe old man sneer again.

  "It happened so suddenly," she said, in her low voice, "that I had nochance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in thestern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then Iheard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might besea-weed--and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the soundof a big fish rubbing its nose against a float."

  Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl ingrim displeasure.

  "Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded.

  "No--not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a fewmoments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down thebeach, I was horribly frightened."

  "Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then,turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to rowall the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take herboat in."

  Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in theleast comprehending what all this meant.

  "That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase wasapparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.

  She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, steppingnoiselessly into the house.

  "I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me anunamiable glance.

  "I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, butI live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like."

  "You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted.

  "Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for myirritability; it's a bargain between us."

  "In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interestsme. I came to see those auks."

  "You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said,contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks."

  I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied,indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I wasfree to step around the house when I cared to.

  I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixedemotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in hissenses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, Iargued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin toa penguin in that pen.

  I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when Icame to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two greatauks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on theirsea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newlyhatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edgeof a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming.

  For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realizethat I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinctrace--the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years,has been accounted an extinct creature.

  I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gonedown and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blottedthe great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight.

  Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listenedto the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses ofthe female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast;I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as thebirds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing forslumber.

  "If you please," came a soft voice from the door, "Mr. Halyard awaitsyour company to dinner."