A Matter of Interest | Page 8

murmur of a shell. Then I looked at my bathing suit and towels.
"In we go!" said I aloud. A second later the prophecy was fulfilled.
I swam far out to sea, and as I swam the waters all around me turned to gold. The sun had risen.
There is a fragrance in the sea at dawn that none can name. Whitethorn abloom in May, sedges asway, and scented rushes rustling in an inland wind recall the sea to me--I can't say why.
Far out at sea I raised myself, swung around, dived, and set out again for shore, striking strong strokes until the flecked foam flew. And when at last I shot through the breakers, I laughed aloud and sprang upon the beach, breathless and happy. Then from the ocean came another cry, clear, joyous, and a white arm rose in the air.
She came drifting in with the waves like a white sea-sprite, laughing at me from her tangled hair, and I plunged into the breakers again to join her.
Side by side we swam along the coast, just outside the breakers, until in the next cove we saw the flutter of her maid's cap strings.
"I will beat you to breakfast!" she cried, as I rested, watching her glide up along the beach.
"Done!" said I--"for a sea-shell!"
"Done!" she called across the water.
I made good speed along the shore, and I was not long in dressing, but when I entered the dining-room she was there, demure, smiling, exquisite in her cool, white frock.
"The sea-shell is yours," said I. "I hope I can find one with a pearl in it."
The professor hurried in before she could reply. He greeted me very cordially, but there was an abstracted air about him, and he called rue Dick until I recognised that remonstrance was useless. He was not long over his coffee and rolls.
"McPeek and Frisby will return with the last load, including your trunk, by early afternoon," he said, rising and picking up his bundle of drawings. "I haven't time to explain to you what we are doing, Dick, but Daisy will take you about and instruct you. She will give you the rifle standing in my room--it's a good Winchester. I have sent for an 'Express' for you, big enough to knock over any elephant in India.--Daisy, take him through the sheds and tell him everything. Luncheon is at noon.--Do you usually take luncheon, Dick?"
"When I am permitted," I smiled.
"Well," said the professor doubtfully, "you mustn't come back here for it. Freda can take you what you want. Is your hand unsteady after eating?"
"Why, papa!" said Daisy. "Do you intend to starve him?"
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The professor tucked his drawings into a capacious pocket, pulled his sea boots up to his hips, seized a spade, and left, nodding to us as though he were thinking of something else.
We went to the door and watched him across the salt meadows until a distant sand dune hid him.
"Come," said Daisy Holroyd, "I am going to take you to the shop."
She put on a broad-brimmed straw hat, a distractingly pretty combination of filmy cool stuffs, and led the way to the long low structure that I bad noticed the evening before.
The interior was lighted by the numberless little portholes, and I could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I did see.
In the centre of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic bat-like wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal possessed legs--four of them--with most unpleasant-looking webbed claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too, resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous snapping turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the vertebr?| of the lizard-like tail.
"Where on earth did such a reptile come from?" I asked at length.
"Oh, it's not real!" said Daisy scornfully; "it's papier-mache."
"I see," said I--"a stage prop."
"A what?" asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.
"Why, a--a sort of Siegfried dragon-- a what's-his-name----er, Pfafner, or Peffer, or--"
"If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you," said Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved toward the door. I apologized--for what, I knew not--and we became reconciled. She ran into her father's room and brought me the rifle, a very good Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge belt, full.
"Now," she smiled, "I shall take you to your observatory, and when we arrive you are to begin your duty at once."
"And that