In Search of the Unknown | Page 9

who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big as
you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a fish!--and I've
a witness to prove what I say!"
"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.
"The witness? My nurse."
"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"
"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the
quarry. Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and
anybody can tell you about the harbor-master."
"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a man--and--by
Heaven! is a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any quarryman at

Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their boats at the
wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of every cat-boat in
the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he saw running and
leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday! Ask anybody along
the coast what sort of a thing moves about the cliffs like a man and
slides over them into the sea like an otter--"
"I saw it do that!" I burst out.
"Oh, did you? Well, what was it?"
Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
lips.
After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
you saw!"
I looked at him without a word.
"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."
"What do you think it is?" I asked.
"I think it's a man--I think it's a branch of the human race--that's what I
think. Let me tell you something: the deepest spot in the Atlantic Ocean
is a trifle over five miles deep--and I suppose you know that this place
lies only about a quarter of a mile off this headland. The British
exploring vessel, Gull, Captain Marotte, discovered and sounded it, I
believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my belief that the profound depths
are inhabited by the remnants of the last race of amphibious human
beings!"
This was childish; I did not bother to reply.
"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know, and
that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my cove,

and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his fishy gills
out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care whether it's
homicide or not--anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it attracts me!"
I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a passion,
and I did not choose to say what I thought.
"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning and
spitting about after my nurse--when she walks, when she rows, when
she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't tolerate it,
I tell you!"
"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
with laughter.
The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose
to close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.
That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over sand and cove. I heard the
seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder--louder than I
ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look at
the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf, all
alone there in the night. But--was it a man? For the figure suddenly
began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle, waving its
limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window again it
darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the chilling drizzle, I
saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the coast--I heard nothing
save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.

V
It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the great
auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to be
sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
York.

I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
I