VI.
AEPYORNIS ISLAND.
The man with the scarred face leant over the table and looked at mybundle.
"Orchids?" he asked.
"A few," I said.
"Cypripediums," he said.
"Chiefly," said I.
"Anything new? I thought not. _I_ did these islands twenty-five--twenty-seven years ago. If you find anything new here--well, it's brandnew. I didn't leave much."
"I'm not a collector," said I.
"I was young then," he went on. "Lord! how I used to fly round." He seemedto take my measure. "I was in the East Indies two years, and in Brazilseven. Then I went to Madagascar."
"I know a few explorers by name," I said, anticipating a yarn. "Whom didyou collect for?"
"Dawson's. I wonder if you've heard the name of Butcher ever?"
"Butcher--Butcher?" The name seemed vaguely present in my memory;then I recalled _Butcher_ v. _Dawson_. "Why!" said I, "you are theman who sued them for four years' salary--got cast away on a desertisland..."
"Your servant," said the man with the scar, bowing. "Funny case, wasn'tit? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doing nothingfor it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice. It often usedto amuse me thinking over it while I was there. I did calculations ofit--big--all over the blessed atoll in ornamental figuring."
"How did it happen?" said I. "I don't rightly remember the case."
"Well... You've heard of the AEpyornis?"
"Rather. Andrews was telling me of a new species he was working on only amonth or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thigh bone, it seems,nearly a yard long. Monster the thing must have been!"
"I believe you," said the man with the scar. "It _was_ a monster.Sindbad's roc was just a legend of 'em. But when did they find thesebones?"
"Three or four years ago--'91, I fancy. Why?"
"Why? Because _I_ found them--Lord!--it's nearly twenty years ago. IfDawson's hadn't been silly about that salary they might have made aperfect ring in 'em... _I_ couldn't help the infernal boat goingadrift."
He paused. "I suppose it's the same place. A kind of swamp about ninetymiles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You have to go to italong the coast by boats. You don't happen to remember, perhaps?"
"I don't. I fancy Andrews said something about a swamp."
"It must be the same. It's on the east coast. And somehow there'ssomething in the water that keeps things from decaying. Like creosote itsmells. It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more eggs? Some ofthe eggs I found were a foot-and-a-half long. The swamp goes circlinground, you know, and cuts off this bit. It's mostly salt, too. Well...What a time I had of it! I found the things quite by accident. We went foreggs, me and two native chaps, in one of those rum canoes all tiedtogether, and found the bones at the same time. We had a tent andprovisions for four days, and we pitched on one of the firmer places. Tothink of it brings that odd tarry smell back even now. It's funny work.You go probing into the mud with iron rods, you know. Usually the egg getssmashed. I wonder how long it is since these AEpyornises really lived. Themissionaries say the natives have legends about when they were alive, butI never heard any such stories myself.[*] But certainly those eggs we gotwere as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down tothe boat one of my nigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. HowI lammed into the beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, noteven smelly, and its mother dead these four hundred years, perhaps. Said acentipede had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight with thestory. It had taken us all day to dig into the slush and get these eggsout unbroken, and we were all covered with beastly black mud, andnaturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only eggs that haveever been got out not even cracked. I went afterwards to see the ones theyhave at the Natural History Museum in London; all of them were cracked andjust stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing. Mine were perfect,and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at thesilly duffer dropping three hours' work just on account of a centipede. Ihit him about rather."
[Footnote *: No European is known to have seen a live AEpyornis, with thedoubtful exception of MacAndrew, who visited Madagascar in 1745.--H.G.W.]
The man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I placed my pouch before him.He filled up absent-mindedly.
"How about the others? Did you get those home? I don't remember--"
"That's the queer part of the story. I had three others. Perfectly fresheggs. Well, we put 'em in the boat, and then I went up to the tent to makesome coffee, leaving my two heathens down by the beach--the one foolingabout with his sting and the other helping him. It never occurred to methat the beggars would take advantage of the peculiar position I was in topick a quarrel. But I suppose the centipede poison and the kicking I hadgiven him had upset the one--he was always a cantankerous sort--and hepersuaded the other.
"I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling up the water over aspirit-lamp business I used to take on these expeditions. Incidentally Iwas admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood-red it was,in streaks--a beautiful sight. And up beyond the land rose grey and hazyto the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth. And fiftyyards behind the back of me was these blessed heathen--quite regardless ofthe tranquil air of things--plotting to cut off with the boat and leave meall alone with three days' provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing todrink whatsoever beyond a little keg of water. I heard a kind of yelpbehind me, and there they were in this canoe affair--it wasn't properly aboat--and, perhaps, twenty yards from land. I realised what was up in amoment. My gun was in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets--only duckshot. They knew that. But I had a little revolver in my pocket, and Ipulled that out as I ran down to the beach.
"'Come back!' says I, flourishing it.
"They jabbered something at me, and the man that broke the egg jeered. Iaimed at the other--because he was unwounded and had the paddle, and Imissed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat. I knew I had to keep cool,and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it. He didn'tlaugh that time. The third time I got his head, and over he went, and thepaddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for a revolver. I reckon itwas fifty yards. He went right under. I don't know if he was shot, orsimply stunned and drowned. Then I began to shout to the other chap tocome back, but he huddled up in the canoe and refused to answer. So Ifired out my revolver at him and never got near him.
"I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was on this rotten, blackbeach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold after the sun set,and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. I tell you Idamned Dawson's and Jamrach's and Museums and all the rest of it just torights. I bawled to this nigger to come back, until my voice went up intoa scream.
"There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck with thesharks. So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and took offmy clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water I lost sight ofthe canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off. I hoped the man in itwas too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep on drifting in thesame direction. Presently it came up over the horizon again to thesouth-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was well over now and thedim of night creeping up. The stars were coming through the blue. I swumlike a champion, though my legs and arms were soon aching.
"However, I came up to him by the time the stars were fairly out. As itgot darker I began to see all manner of glowing things in the water--phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I hardly knew whichwas stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I was swimming on myhead or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, and the ripple under thebows like liquid fire. I was naturally chary of clambering up into it. Iwas anxious to see what he was up to first. He seemed to be lying cuddledup in a lump in the bows, and the stern was all out of water. The thingkept turning round slowly as it drifted---kind of waltzing, don't youknow. I we
nt to the stern and pulled it down, expecting him to wake up.Then I began to clamber in with my knife in my hand, and ready for a rush.But he never stirred. So there I sat in the stern of the little canoe,drifting away over the calm phosphorescent sea, and with all the host ofthe stars above me, waiting for something to happen.
"After a long time I called him by name, but he never answered. I was tootired to take any risks by going along to him. So we sat there. I fancy Idozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw he was as dead as a doornailand all puffed up and purple. My three eggs and the bones were lying inthe middle of the canoe, and the keg of water and some coffee and biscuitswrapped in a Cape _Argus_ by his feet, and a tin of methylated spiritunderneath him. There was no paddle, nor, in fact, anything except thespirit-tin that I could use as one, so I settled to drift until I waspicked up. I held an inquest on him, brought in a verdict against somesnake, scorpion, or centipede unknown, and sent him overboard.
"After that I had a drink of water and a few biscuits, and took a lookround. I suppose a man low down as I was don't see very far; leastways,Madagascar was clean out of sight, and any trace of land at all. I saw asail going south-westward--looked like a schooner but her hull never cameup. Presently the sun got high in the sky and began to beat down upon me.Lord! it pretty near made my brains boil. I tried dipping my head in thesea, but after a while my eye fell on the Cape _Argus_, and I laydown flat in the canoe and spread this over me. Wonderful things thesenewspapers! I never read one through thoroughly before, but it's odd whatyou get up to when you're alone, as I was. I suppose I read that blessedold Cape _Argus_ twenty times. The pitch in the canoe simply reekedwith the heat and rose up into big blisters.
"I drifted ten days," said the man with the scar. "It's a little thing inthe telling, isn't it? Every day was like the last. Except in the morningand the evening I never kept a look-out even--the blaze was so infernal. Ididn't see a sail after the first three days, and those I saw took nonotice of me. About the sixth night a ship went by scarcely half a mileaway from me, with all its lights ablaze and its ports open, looking likea big firefly. There was music aboard. I stood up and shouted and screamedat it. The second day I broached one of the AEpyornis eggs, scraped theshell away at the end bit by bit, and tried it, and I was glad to find itwas good enough to eat. A bit flavoury--not bad, I mean--but withsomething of the taste of a duck's egg. There was a kind of circularpatch, about six inches across, on one side of the yoke, and with streaksof blood and a white mark like a ladder in it that I thought queer, but Idid not understand what this meant at the time, and I wasn't inclined tobe particular. The egg lasted me three days, with biscuits and a drink ofwater. I chewed coffee berries too--invigorating stuff. The second egg Iopened about the eighth day, and it scared me."
The man with the scar paused. "Yes," he said, "developing."
"I daresay you find it hard to believe. _I_ did, with the thingbefore me. There the egg had been, sunk in that cold black mud, perhapsthree hundred years. But there was no mistaking it. There was the--what isit?--embryo, with its big head and curved back, and its heart beatingunder its throat, and the yolk shrivelled up and great membranes spreadinginside of the shell and all over the yolk. Here was I hatching out theeggs of the biggest of all extinct birds, in a little canoe in the midstof the Indian Ocean. If old Dawson had known that! It was worth fouryears' salary. What do _you_ think?
"However, I had to eat that precious thing up, every bit of it, before Isighted the reef, and some of the mouthfuls were beastly unpleasant. Ileft the third one alone. I held it up to the light, but the shell was toothick for me to get any notion of what might be happening inside; andthough I fancied I heard blood pulsing, it might have been the rustle inmy own ears, like what you listen to in a seashell.
"Then came the atoll. Came out of the sunrise, as it were, suddenly, closeup to me. I drifted straight towards it until I was about half a mile fromshore, not more, and then the current took a turn, and I had to paddle ashard as I could with my hands and bits of the AEpyornis shell to make theplace. However, I got there. It was just a common atoll about four milesround, with a few trees growing and a spring in one place, and the lagoonfull of parrot-fish. I took the egg ashore and put it in a good place,well above the tide lines and in the sun, to give it all the chance Icould, and pulled the canoe up safe, and loafed about prospecting. It'srum how dull an atoll is. As soon as I had found a spring all the interestseemed to vanish. When I was a kid I thought nothing could be finer ormore adventurous than the Robinson Crusoe business, but that place was asmonotonous as a book of sermons. I went round finding eatable things andgenerally thinking; but I tell you I was bored to death before the firstday was out. It shows my luck--the very day I landed the weather changed.A thunderstorm went by to the north and flicked its wing over the island,and in the night there came a drencher and a howling wind slap over us. Itwouldn't have taken much, you know, to upset that canoe.
"I was sleeping under the canoe, and the egg was luckily among the sandhigher up the beach, and the first thing I remember was a sound like ahundred pebbles hitting the boat at once, and a rush of water over mybody. I'd been dreaming of Antananarivo, and I sat up and holloaed toIntoshi to ask her what the devil was up, and clawed out at the chairwhere the matches used to be. Then I remembered where I was. There werephosphorescent waves rolling up as if they meant to eat me, and all therest of the night as black as pitch. The air was simply yelling. Theclouds seemed down on your head almost, and the rain fell as if heaven wassinking and they were baling out the waters above the firmament. One greatroller came writhing at me, like a fiery serpent, and I bolted. Then Ithought of the canoe, and ran down to it as the water went hissing backagain; but the thing had gone. I wondered about the egg then, and felt myway to it. It was all right and well out of reach of the maddest waves, soI sat down beside it and cuddled it for company. Lord! what a night thatwas!
"The storm was over before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud leftin the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were bits ofplank scattered--which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to speak, of mycanoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking advantage of twoof the trees being together, I rigged up a kind of storm-shelter withthese vestiges. And that day the egg hatched.
"Hatched, sir, when my head was pillowed on it and I was asleep. I heard awhack and felt a jar and sat up, and there was the end of the egg peckedout and a rum little brown head looking out at me. 'Lord!' I said, 'you'rewelcome'; and with a little difficulty he came out.
"He was a nice friendly little chap at first, about the size of a smallhen--very much like most other young birds, only bigger. His plumage was adirty brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab that fell off it verysoon, and scarcely feathers--a kind of downy hair. I can hardly expresshow pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make nearenough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked atme and winked his eye from the front backwards, like a hen, and gave achirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched threehundred years too late was just nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!'says I, for I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if everhe was hatched, as soon as ever I found the egg in the canoe haddeveloped. I was a bit anxious about his feed, so I gave him a lump of rawparrot-fish at once. He took it, and opened his beak for more. I was gladof that for, under the circumstances, if he'd been at all fanciful, Ishould have had to eat him after all.
"You'd be surprised what an interesting bird that AEpyornis chick was. Hefollowed me about from the very beginning. He used to stand by me andwatch while I fished in the lagoon, and go shares in anything I caught.And he was sensible, too. There were nasty green warty things, likepickled gherkins, used to lie about on the beach, and he tried one ofthese and it upset him. He never even looked at any of them again.
"And he grew. You could almost see him grow. And as I was never much of asociety man, his quiet, friendly ways suited me to a T. For nearly twoy
ears we were as happy as we could be on that island. I had no businessworries, for I knew my salary was mounting up at Dawsons'. We would see asail now and then, but nothing ever came near us. I amused myself, too, bydecorating the island with designs worked in sea-urchins and fancy shellsof various kinds. I put AEPYORNIS ISLAND all round the place very nearly,in big letters, like what you see done with coloured stones at railwaystations in the old country, and mathematical calculations and drawings ofvarious sorts. And I used to lie watching the blessed bird stalking roundand growing, growing; and think how I could make a living out of him byshowing him about if I ever got taken off. After his first moult he beganto get handsome, with a crest and a blue wattle, and a lot of greenfeathers at the behind of him. And then I used to puzzle whether Dawsons'had any right to claim him or not. Stormy weather and in the rainy seasonwe lay snug under the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I usedto tell him lies about my friends at home. And after a storm we would goround the island together to see if there was any drift. It was a kind ofidyll, you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it would have beensimply just like heaven.
"It was about the end of the second year our little paradise went wrong.Friday was then about fourteen feet high to the bill of him, with a big,broad head like the end of a pickaxe, and two huge brown eyes with yellowrims, set together like a man's--not out of sight of each other like ahen's. His plumage was fine--none of the half-mourning style of yourostrich--more like a cassowary as far as colour and texture go. And thenit was he began to cock his comb at me and give himself airs, and showsigns of a nasty temper ...
"At last came a time when my fishing had been rather unlucky, and he beganto hang about me in a queer, meditative way. I thought he might have beeneating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was really just discontent onhis part. I was hungry too, and when at last I landed a fish I wanted itfor myself. Tempers were short that morning on both sides. He pecked at itand grabbed it, and I gave him a whack on the head to make him leave go.And at that he went for me. Lord! ...
"He gave me this in the face." The man indicated his scar. "Then he kickedme. It was like a carthorse. I got up, and seeing he hadn't finished, Istarted off full tilt with my arms doubled up over my face. But he ran onthose gawky legs of his faster than a racehorse, and kept landing out atme with sledgehammer kicks, and bringing his pickaxe down on the back ofmy head. I made for the lagoon, and went in up to my neck. He stopped atthe water, for he hated getting his feet wet, and began to make a shindy,something like a peacock's, only hoarser. He started strutting up and downthe beach. I'll admit I felt small to see this blessed fossil lording itthere. And my head and face were all bleeding, and--well, my body just onejelly of bruises.
"I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave him alone for a bit, untilthe affair blew over. I shinned up the tallest palm-tree, and sat therethinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurt by anything beforeor since. It was the brutal ingratitude of the creature. I'd been morethan a brother to him. I'd hatched him, educated him. A great gawky,out-of-date bird! And me a human being--heir of the ages and all that.
"I thought after a time he'd begin to see things in that light himself,and feel a little sorry for his behaviour. I thought if I was to catchsome nice little bits of fish, perhaps, and go to him presently in acasual kind of way, and offer them to him, he might do the sensible thing.It took me some time to learn how unforgiving and cantankerous an extinctbird can be. Malice!
"I won't tell you all the little devices I tried to get that bird roundagain, I simply can't. It makes my cheek burn with shame even now to thinkof the snubs and buffets I had from this infernal curiosity. I triedviolence. I chucked lumps of coral at him from a safe distance, but heonly swallowed them. I shied my open knife at him and almost lost it,though it was too big for him to swallow. I tried starving him out andstruck fishing, but he took to picking along the beach at low water afterworms, and rubbed along on that. Half my time I spent up to my neck in thelagoon, and the rest up the palm-trees. One of them was scarcely highenough, and when he caught me up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with thecalves of my legs. It got unbearable. I don't know if you have ever triedsleeping up a palm-tree. It gave me the most horrible nightmares. Think ofthe shame of it, too! Here was this extinct animal mooning about my islandlike a sulky duke, and me not allowed to rest the sole of my foot on theplace. I used to cry with weariness and vexation. I told him straight thatI didn't mean to be chased about a desert island by any damnedanachronisms. I told him to go and peck a navigator of his own age. But heonly snapped his beak at me. Great ugly bird, all legs and neck!
"I shouldn't like to say how long that went on altogether. I'd have killedhim sooner if I'd known how. However, I hit on a way of settling him atlast. It is a South American dodge. I joined all my fishing-lines togetherwith stems of seaweed and things, and made a stoutish string, perhapstwelve yards in length or more, and I fastened two lumps of coral rock tothe ends of this. It took me some time to do, because every now and thenI had to go into the lagoon or up a tree as the fancy took me. This Iwhirled rapidly round my head, and then let it go at him. The first time Imissed, but the next time the string caught his legs beautifully, andwrapped round them again and again. Over he went. I threw it standingwaist-deep in the lagoon, and as soon as he went down I was out of thewater and sawing at his neck with my knife ...
"I don't like to think of that even now. I felt like a murderer while Idid it, though my anger was hot against him. When I stood over him and sawhim bleeding on the white sand, and his beautiful great legs and neckwrithing in his last agony ... Pah!
"With that tragedy loneliness came upon me like a curse. Good Lord! youcan't imagine how I missed that bird. I sat by his corpse and sorrowedover him, and shivered as I looked round the desolate, silent reef.I thought of what a jolly little bird he had been when he was hatched, andof a thousand pleasant tricks he had played before he went wrong.I thought if I'd only wounded him I might have nursed him round into abetter understanding. If I'd had any means of digging into the coral rockI'd have buried him. I felt exactly as if he was human. As it was,I couldn't think of eating him, so I put him in the lagoon, and the littlefishes picked him clean. I didn't even save the feathers. Then one day achap cruising about in a yacht had a fancy to see if my atoll stillexisted.
"He didn't come a moment too soon, for I was about sick enough of thedesolation of it, and only hesitating whether I should walk out into thesea and finish up the business that way, or fall back on the greenthings...
"I sold the bones to a man named Winslow--a dealer near the BritishMuseum, and he says he sold them to old Havers. It seems Havers didn'tunderstand they were extra large, and it was only after his death theyattracted attention. They called 'em AEpyornis--what was it?"
"_AEpyornis vastus_," said I. "It's funny, the very thing wasmentioned to me by a friend of mine. When they found an AEpyornis, with athigh a yard long, they thought they had reached the top of the scale, andcalled him _AEpyornis maximus_. Then some one turned up anotherthigh-bone four feet six or more, and that they called _AEpyornisTitan_. Then your _vastus_ was found after old Havers died, in hiscollection, and then a _vastissimus_ turned up."
"Winslow was telling me as much," said the man with the scar. "If they getany more AEpyornises, he reckons some scientific swell will go and burst ablood-vessel. But it was a queer thing to happen to a man; wasn't it--altogether?"