Credo Fitch Harris

“ From the black forest far behind us could be detected faint restless noises, as if a myriad agitated spirits were scurrying hither and thither whipping their wings against the branches. Something more than an ordinary man's size blow was coming out of the southeast, so I tumbled the crew into their boat, charging them to pull right heartily and bring back Tommy, at least, before too late.
They must have got close to the Whim when a force, as sudden as it was at the moment unexpected, almost lifted me off my feet. ”

“ By the spirit of Pan, my pool felt good after the long day's hike!
The wind had changed with the waning afternoon and now blew gently from the southwest, promising a period of fair weather. It gave us, also, the advantage of greater freedom in noises; for, when living in the wild, one comes to realize how potent a carrier, or muffler, of noises is the wind. A fire at night, or smoke by day, may be tempered with human ingenuity, but nature bandies the sound waves with her breath.
I dined in the elegance of simplicity, and Smilax extinguished our small fire of buttonwood. ”

“ I am curious of nothing, and you will someday learn that curiosity is the root of tragedy." [97]
"There's an epigram worthy of you: 'Curiosity is the root of tragedy'—and the blossom of delight!"
"I said nothing of delight," the professor blushed. "I said tragedy! And—ah, I see! You are cut-upping! I will not talk. Your conscience should hurt you!"
"Not conscience, old fellow! The wages of conscience is ennui, and the gods know how I hate that. Give me your epigrams on delight and love, and the Princess of Azuria!" ”

“ How about you, Tommy?"
"Smell a little smoke, but don't see any bright light yet. Elucidate, professor!"
He sighed, giving us a look of pity, I thought.
"If I call to a man, and the space is great, my voice may fail before reaching him. Yet if it hangs its vibrations on a puff of air, a passing breeze that blows in his direction, he hears me! So does the soul employ the passing breeze—by which I mean the capricious thing called dreaming—to enter our consciousness that might not otherwise be reached. ”

“ The howls of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The smart in my eyes was passing enough for me to see four of them running southward across the prairie with the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew that, without realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots. Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in the ditch several figures, shouting and waving their hats.
"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I did not name them all, but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved, sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!" ”

“ We could no more have continued to stroll side by side through our Oasis, commenting on the seasons, sometimes rapturous over a sunset or the call of a bird, than we could have rubbed a lamp and brought the Whim sailing to us over the sea of grass. Static existences only prevail with static people, and there was too much surgingly dynamic about this twenty year old girl to have encouraged it here. I say, too, with candor that any man of twenty-six whose blood is red is—with the great out-of-doors abetting—not insulated for or against currents. ”

“ Tommy asked, "that every dream is intended to express something?"
"I will not go quite that far, although there are men highly practiced in the science of psycho-analytical research who stoutly affirm it. Ah, the great difficulty is in drawing the line—in determining which dreams are but passing breezes and which are sent to us upon the wings of angels!"
"You've studied those things," I ventured. "Which was mine?"
"Study!" he cried, with a fine degree of scorn. "Yes, we study! We gather around the brink of a black well and steep ourselves in thought; we wrinkle our brows and tear our beards. ”

“ Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one hears a water-drip—aftermath of rains ”

“ See a dream! Great heavens, if I wanted to see a dream!
He led the way aft to a ribbon of freshly developed film hanging from the boom to dry and, as I gingerly raised it to the light, he went on to explain:
"It was boorish of him, but I'm to blame. We were standing forward after breakfast snapping the harbor when that yacht weighed anchor and swung across our bow less than thirty feet off; and, Jack, with the prettiest girl I ever saw—barring Nell—looking out at us through a porthole. 'Shoot her,' I whispered. So he swung his camera and shot, and she gave a darling little gasp and ducked." ”

“ And from this grim place we merged once more into the jungle where my clothes again became the prey of clawing things.
But Smilax, never faltering, moved with the ease of a shadow. At last, by watching him I, too, came to learn his secret and was charmed to find that it made [162] my pace both quiet and swift. Indeed, I took great care to practice this silent trail walking—a knack that can be acquired only by the closest observation; for a hundred books could not teach a hundredth part as much as a ten-mile hike at the heels of a trained woodsman when he is trying to go noiselessly. ”

“ The leaves transmitted their restlessness to my yawning nerves, as iron dust springs to a magnet.
Intending to wave good luck as he melted into the darkness, without being observed I walked silently behind him to the prairie's edge; but there he stopped, opened his arms, raised his face to the sky, standing motionless. And a great peace came over me, for I saw that, in the simple way of the old-time Seminoles who invariably turned to their Great Spirit on the eve of hopes or fears or dangers, Smilax was praying.
Religion is the poetry of the savages' existence. Alas, that we are civilized! ”

“ It was here that Tommy passed me on his way to the cabin.
"Time for dinner," he said, stopping and laying down something that had been under his arm.
"Don't want any dinner," I growled.
His face, for the first time in three days, broke into a beatific smile, and for a moment I was disposed to punch it, thinking, of course, that he meant to guy me. But he saw this intention and sprang back, holding his palms outward in an attitude of alert protest; yet the smile continued, now to be followed by a low, pleased laugh.
"Don't get mad," he gurgled. "I'm not laughing at you—only at things." ”

“ The impossibility is to say which is which—that is, which is the unfulfilled desire, which is but the capricious passing breeze, and which is the message from another! If in the dark an uneducated fellow sits at a piano he might play several lovely chords, yet while they sounded well there would be no intelligence behind them. Such is the chance dream! But a master-player could produce a rhapsody, expressing to one who listened hope, love, desire, warning—everything. ”

“ I stammered, feeling my cheeks grow hot. For, albeit, Doloria had slept part of a night with her head against my shoulder when we fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's words knocked me rather into a self-conscious heap. But such is the bitter tithe we must toss into the maw of civilization which, despite its multitude of admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest American family could be divinely appointed arbiter of our customs. ”

“ It was yet night when I opened my eyes, but Smilax had lit a small buttonwood fire and breakfast was waiting. While I stumbled to the pool to drive the cobwebs from my brain he took the canteens and filled them at the spring; for, in the all-day strain ahead of us—and few things are more trying than to lie concealed and watch from the gray of dawn till the black of night—we should need a liberal supply of water. ”

“ So I picked a blossom of the iris—that had taken its color from her eyes—and put it carefully away. By the spirit of her glance, by the unspoken message of this place, I swore—oh, why put down here all I swore? Men have stood beside solemn pools before, and women, too. Those who commune in the woods think more sublimely than they speak, so I can not speak now, in written words, my immeasurable longing.
Soon Smilax, grinning broadly, emerged from the shadows. ”

“ But farther yet to the northeast, in the Florida I best knew and loved, a whooping crane would startle the solitude with its uncanny cry, the alligators would croak their guttural grunts at waking time, while, here and there in the shadowy forest, the whine of a skulking panther would strike terror to the hearts of gentler things. Ah, the trackless wilderness of dreamy Florida, where nature moves on padded foot and silent wing! ”

“ God, Doloria, that you won't be among those who squeeze their hearts dry! You've lived away from the world and may not know how plentiful these are; but no day passes without its toll of some woman being silently crucified in her losing fight to save a besotted biped—the lord of her earthly temple. It's only by a streak of luck when their stage is cleared, as Echochee's was! ”

“ The sun must have set while we were encircling my pool. Then we passed on into a still denser growth, following a crooked path that led to the fort—entering a mysterious shadow-land that twilights have the trick of producing when overhead foliage shuts out the afterglow and the serene forest gloom is painted in tones of gray. The soft earth we trod was dark, and the water lay phantom-like in its black bowl. ”

“ In our present days of railroads, telegraphs and institutions of learning I was merely a chap setting out to take a girl from a den of rogues; but in this night-bathed Florida wilderness civilization had been stripped to the bone. I was a man going forth to steal a female—I had come from my lair at dusk, set off with a snarl on my lips and a firm grip upon my stone axe; so completely dominated by this feeling that human pawns who might stand in the way would be of no more consequence than ants. ”

“ I was King of the great out-of-doors; a reincarnated primordial monster, holding high carnival with the elements!
Smilax, having come in search of me and seeing my head far from shore, followed at once. It was then, as he approached, that I received my first disillusionment of being king by the right of muscle, because he sped through the water as an oiled torpedo, putting to shame my skill that had been somewhat thought of in the Athletic Club tank at home. Almost immediately followed my second jolt, as he glanced over his shoulder, saying:
"Lookout, maybe whole lot shark!" ”

“ They left us then, and again we settled about the cockpit; each waiting for one of the others to begin. My own thoughts were like a whirlwind, and my ears strained with listening toward the black Gulf—listening for a voice, or the unnamable noise of the gods knew what, that might float to me across the water. I think Tommy half expected me to suggest that we take one of the small boats, and went to his room to put on darker clothes. ”

“ Don't you know that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with adventure—both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them! It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"
"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six—men you've always known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The Whim, you can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! ”

“ Along the side of my rifle barrel now resting in the crease I took a good look at the Orchid sailing with apparent unconcern but a short way out from us, but I could picture the activity and hatred seething below her deck. I wondered what Sylvia might be thinking about all this; if she associated our pursuit by the slightest imaginative thread with a fellow who impolitely stared at her in a Havana café, yet to whom she had been willing to cry: "I am in danger!" ”

“ Tommy asked, intuitively sympathizing with my state of mind.
"Yes. In Roumania a woman may not ascend the throne alone, but in Azuria, where the Ruman blood has never mixed, she may act as regent if her heir is a girl too young to marry. But now," he clapped his hands joyfully, "we can complete the alliance with a neighboring prince—and, ah, what joy there will be!"
"You've got to catch her first," Tommy said, not without a trace of spite. "Even if we get near enough to see him, at all, he can see us, too; then lead us off the track till night and make a run for base." ”