CHAPTER XV
THE LAGOON OF FIRE
Ever since the tragedy of six years ago there had been forming in themind of Emmeline Lestrange a something—shall I call it a deepmistrust. She had never been clever; lessons had saddened and weariedher, without making her much the wiser. Yet her mind was of that orderinto which profound truths come by short cuts. She was intuitive.
Great knowledge may lurk in the human mind without the owner of themind being aware. He or she acts in such or such a way, or thinks insuch and such a manner from intuition in other words, as the outcomeof the profoundest reasoning.
When we have learned to call storms, storms, and death, death, andbirth, birth; when we have mastered the sailor’s horn book, and MrPiddington’s law of cyclones, Ellis’s anatomy, and Lewer’s midwifery,we have already made ourselves half blind. We have become hypnotised bywords and names. We think in words and names, not in ideas; thecommonplace has triumphed, the true intellect is half crushed.
Storms had burst over the island before this. And what Emmelineremembered of them might be expressed by an instance.
The morning would be bright and happy, never so bright the sun, or sobalmy the breeze, or so peaceful the blue lagoon then, with a horridsuddenness, as if sick with dissimulation and mad to show itself,something would blacken the sun, and with a yell stretch out a hand andravage the island, churn the lagoon into foam, beat down the cocoa-nuttrees, and slay the birds. And one bird would be left and anothertaken, one tree destroyed, and another left standing. The fury of thething was less fearful than the blindness of it, and the indifferenceof it.
One night, when the child was asleep, just after the last star was lit,Dick appeared at the doorway of the house. He had been down to thewater’s edge and had now returned. He beckoned Emmeline to follow him,and, putting down the child, she did so.
“Come here and look,” said he.
He led the way to the water; and as they approached it, Emmeline becameaware that there was something strange about the lagoon. From adistance it looked pale and solid; it might have been a great stretchof grey marble veined with black. Then, as she drew nearer, she sawthat the dull grey appearance was a deception of the eye.
The lagoon was alight and burning.
The phosphoric fire was in its very heart and being; every coral branchwas a torch, every fish a passing lantern. The incoming tide moving thewaters made the whole glittering floor of the lagoon move and shiver,and the tiny waves to lap the bank, leaving behind them glow-wormtraces.
“Look!” said Dick.
He knelt down and plunged his forearm into the water. The immersed partburned like a smouldering torch. Emmeline could see it as plainly asthough it were lit by sunlight. Then he drew his arm out, and as far asthe water had reached, it was covered by a glowing glove.
They had seen the phosphorescence of the lagoon before; indeed, anynight you might watch the passing fish like bars of silver, when themoon was away; but this was something quite new, and it was entrancing.
Emmeline knelt down and dabbled her hands, and made herself a pair ofphosphoric gloves, and cried out with pleasure, and laughed. It was allthe pleasure of playing with fire without the danger of being burnt.Then Dick rubbed his face with the water till it glowed.
“Wait!” he cried; and, running up to the house, he fetched out Hannah.
He came running down with him to the water’s edge, gave Emmeline thechild, unmoored the boat, and started out from shore.
The sculls, as far as they were immersed, were like bars of glisteningsilver; under them passed the fish, leaving cometic tails; each coralclump was a lamp, lending its lustre till the great lagoon was luminousas a lit-up ballroom. Even the child on Emmeline’s lap crowed and criedout at the strangeness of the sight.
They landed on the reef and wandered over the flat. The sea was whiteand bright as snow, and the foam looked like a hedge of fire.
As they stood gazing on this extraordinary sight, suddenly, almost asinstantaneously as the switching off of an electric light, thephosphorescence of the sea flickered and vanished.
The moon was rising. Her crest was just breaking from the water, and asher face came slowly into view behind a belt of vapour that lay on thehorizon, it looked fierce and red, stained with smoke like the face ofEblis.