CHAPTER XII
THE LAKE OF AZURE
On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm, almost asa lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the aqua marine. Waterso clear that fathoms away below you could see the branching coral, theschools of passing fish, and the shadows of the fish upon the spaces ofsand.
Before them the clear water washed the sands of a white beach, thecocoa-palms waved and whispered in the breeze; and as the oarsman layon his oars to look a flock of bluebirds rose, as if suddenly freedfrom the tree-tops, wheeled, and passed soundless, like a wreath ofsmoke, over the tree-tops of the higher land beyond.
“Look!” shouted Dick, who had his nose over the gunwale of the boat.“Look at the _fish_!”
“Mr Button,” cried Emmeline, “where are we?”
“Bedad, I dunno; but we might be in a worse place, I’m thinkin’,”replied the old man, sweeping his eyes over the blue and tranquillagoon, from the barrier reef to the happy shore.
On either side of the broad beach before them the cocoa-nut trees camedown like two regiments, and bending gazed at their own reflections inthe lagoon. Beyond lay waving chapparel, where cocoa-palms andbreadfruit trees intermixed with the mammee apple and the tendrils ofthe wild vine. On one of the piers of coral at the break of the reefstood a single cocoa-palm; bending with a slight curve, it, too, seemedseeking its reflection in the waving water.
But the soul of it all, the indescribable thing about this picture ofmirrored palm trees, blue lagoon, coral reef and sky, was the light.
Away at sea the light was blinding, dazzling, cruel. Away at sea it hadnothing to focus itself upon, nothing to exhibit but infinite spaces ofblue water and desolation.
Here it made the air a crystal, through which the gazer saw theloveliness of the land and reef, the green of palm, the white of coral,the wheeling gulls, the blue lagoon, all sharply outlined—burning,coloured, arrogant, yet tender—heart-breakingly beautiful, for thespirit of eternal morning was here, eternal happiness, eternal youth.
As the oarsman pulled the tiny craft towards the beach, neither he northe children saw away behind the boat, on the water near the bendingpalm tree at the break in the reef, something that for a momentinsulted the day, and was gone. Something like a small triangle of darkcanvas, that rippled through the water and sank from sight; somethingthat appeared and vanished like an evil thought.
It did not take long to beach the boat. Mr Button tumbled over the sideup to his knees in water, whilst Dick crawled over the bow.
“Catch hould of her the same as I do,” cried Paddy, laying hold of thestarboard gunwale; whilst Dick, imitative as a monkey, seized thegunwale to port. Now then:
“‘Yeo ho, Chilliman, Up wid her, up wid her, Heave O, Chilliman.’
“Lave her be now; she’s high enough.”
He took Emmeline in his arms and carried her up on the sand. It wasfrom just here on the sand that you could see the true beauty of thelagoon. That lake of sea water forever protected from storm and troubleby the barrier reef of coral.
Right from where the little clear ripples ran up the strand, it led theeye to the break in the coral reef where the palm gazed at its ownreflection in the water, and there, beyond the break, one caught avision of the great heaving, sparkling sea.
The lagoon, just here, was perhaps more than a third of a mile broad. Ihave never measured it, but I know that, standing by the palm tree onthe reef, flinging up one’s arm and shouting to a person on the beach,the sound took a perceptible time to cross the water: I should say,perhaps, an almost perceptible time. The distant signal and the distantcall were almost coincident, yet not quite.
Dick, mad with delight at the place in which he found himself, wasrunning about like a dog just out of the water. Mr Button wasdischarging the cargo of the dinghy on the dry, white sand. Emmelineseated herself with her precious bundle on the sand, and was watchingthe operations of her friend, looking at the things around her andfeeling very strange.
For all she knew all this was the ordinary accompaniment of a seavoyage. Paddy’s manner throughout had been set to the one idea, not tofrighten the “childer”; the weather had backed him up. But down in theheart of her lay the knowledge that all was not as it should be. Thehurried departure from the ship, the fog in which her uncle hadvanished, those things, and others as well, she felt instinctively werenot right. But she said nothing.
She had not long for meditation, however, for Dick was running towardsher with a live crab which he had picked up, calling out that he wasgoing to make it bite her.
“Take it away!” cried Emmeline, holding both hands with fingerswidespread in front of her face. “Mr Button! Mr Button! Mr Button!”
“Lave her be, you little divil!” roared Pat, who was depositing thelast of the cargo on the sand. “Lave her be, or it’s a cow-hidin’ I’llbe givin’ you!”
“What’s a ‘divil,’ Paddy?” asked Dick, panting from his exertions.“Paddy, what’s a ‘divil’?”
“You’re wan. Ax no questions now, for it’s tired I am, an’ I want torest me bones.”
He flung himself under the shade of a palm tree, took out his tinderbox, tobacco and pipe, cut some tobacco up, filled his pipe and lit it.Emmeline crawled up, and sat near him, and Dick flung himself down onthe sand near Emmeline.
Mr Button took off his coat and made a pillow of it against a cocoa-nuttree stem. He had found the El Dorado of the weary. With his knowledgeof the South Seas a glance at the vegetation to be seen told him thatfood for a regiment might be had for the taking; water, too.
Right down the middle of the strand was a depression which in the rainyseason would be the bed of a rushing rivulet. The water just now wasnot strong enough to come all the way to the lagoon, but away up there“beyant” in the woods lay the source, and he’d find it in due time.There was enough in the breaker for a week, and green “cuca-nuts” wereto be had for the climbing.
Emmeline contemplated Paddy for a while as he smoked and rested hisbones, then a great thought occurred to her. She took the little shawlfrom around the parcel she was holding and exposed the mysterious box.
“Oh, begorra, the box!” said Paddy, leaning on his elbow interestedly;“I might a’ known you wouldn’t a’ forgot it.”
“Mrs James,” said Emmeline, “made me promise not to open it till I goton shore, for the things in it might get lost.”
“Well, you’re ashore now,” said Dick; “open it.”
“I’m going to,” said Emmeline.
She carefully undid the string, refusing the assistance of Paddy’sknife. Then the brown paper came off, disclosing a common cardboardbox. She raised the lid half an inch, peeped in, and shut it again.
“_Open_ it!” cried Dick, mad with curiosity.
“What’s in it, honey?” asked the old sailor, who was as interested asDick.
“Things,” replied Emmeline.
Then all at once she took the lid off and disclosed a tiny tea serviceof china, packed in shavings; there was a teapot with a lid, a creamjug, cups and saucers, and six microscopic plates, each painted with apansy.
“Sure, it’s a tay-set!” said Paddy, in an interested voice. “Glory beto God! will you look at the little plates wid the flowers on thim?”
“Heugh!” said Dick in disgust; “I thought it might a’ been soldiers.”
“_I_ don’t want soldiers,” replied Emmeline, in a voice of perfectcontentment.
She unfolded a piece of tissue paper, and took from it a sugar-tongsand six spoons. Then she arrayed the whole lot on the sand.
“Well, if that don’t beat all!” said Paddy.
“And whin are you goin’ to ax me to tay with you?”
“Some time,” replied Emmeline, collecting the things, and carefullyrepacking them.
Mr Button finished his pipe, tapped the ashes out, and placed it in hispocket.
“I’ll be afther riggin’ up a bit of a tint,” said he, as he rose to hisfeet, “to shelter us
from the jew to-night; but I’ll first have a lookat the woods to see if I can find wather. Lave your box with the otherthings, Emmeline; there’s no one here to take it.”
Emmeline left her box on the heap of things that Paddy had placed inthe shadow of the cocoa-nut trees, took his hand, and the three enteredthe grove on the right.
It was like entering a pine forest; the tall symmetrical stems of thetrees seemed set by mathematical law, each at a given distance from theother. Whichever way you entered a twilight alley set with tree boleslay before you. Looking up you saw at an immense distance above a palegreen roof patined with sparkling and flashing points of light, wherethe breeze was busy playing with the green fronds of the trees.
“Mr Button,” murmured Emmeline, “we won’t get lost, will we?”
“Lost! No, faith; sure we’re goin’ uphill, an’ all we have to do is tocome down again, when we want to get back—ware nuts!” A green nutdetached from up above came down rattling and tumbling and hopped onthe ground. Paddy picked it up. “It’s a green cucanut,” said he,putting it in his pocket (it was not very much bigger than a Jaffaorange), “and we’ll have it for tay.”
“That’s not a cocoa-nut,” said Dick; “cocoa-nuts are brown. I had fivecents once an’ I bought one, and scraped it out and y’et it.”
“When Dr Sims made Dicky sick,” said Emmeline, “he said the wondert’im was how Dicky held it all.”
“Come on,” said Mr Button, “an’ don’t be talkin’, or it’s theCluricaunes will be after us.”
“What’s cluricaunes?” demanded Dick.
“Little men no bigger than your thumb that make the brogues for theGood People.”
“Who’s they?”
“Whisht, and don’t be talkin’. Mind your head, Em’leen, or thebranches’ll be hittin’ you in the face.”
They had left the cocoa-nut grove, and entered the chapparel. Here wasa deeper twilight, and all sorts of trees lent their foliage to makethe shade. The artu with its delicately diamonded trunk, the greatbreadfruit tall as a beech, and shadowy as a cave, the aoa, and theeternal cocoa-nut palm all grew here like brothers. Great ropes of wildvine twined like the snake of the laocoon from tree to tree, and allsorts of wonderful flowers, from the orchid shaped like a butterfly tothe scarlet hibiscus, made beautiful the gloom.
Suddenly Mr Button stopped.
“Whisht!” said he.
Through the silence—a silence filled with the hum and the murmur ofwood insects and the faint, far song of the reef—came a tinkling,rippling sound: it was water. He listened to make sure of the bearingof the sound, then he made for it.
Next moment they found themselves in a little grass-grown glade. Fromthe hilly ground above, over a rock black and polished like ebony, fella tiny cascade not much broader than one’s hand; ferns grew around andfrom a tree above where a great rope of wild convolvulus flowers blewtheir trumpets in the enchanted twilight.
The children cried out at the prettiness of it, and Emmeline ran anddabbled her hands in the water. Just above the little waterfall spranga banana tree laden with fruit; it had immense leaves six feet long andmore, and broad as a dinner-table. One could see the golden glint ofthe ripe fruit through the foliage.
In a moment Mr Button had kicked off his shoes and was going up therock like a cat, absolutely, for it seemed to give him nothing to climbby.
“Hurroo!” cried Dick in admiration. “Look at Paddy!”
Emmeline looked, and saw nothing but swaying leaves.
“Stand from under!” he shouted, and next moment down came a huge bunchof yellow-jacketed bananas. Dick shouted with delight, but Emmelineshowed no excitement: she had discovered something.
The Blue Lagoon: A Romance Page 12