The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents Read online

  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 islandstwenty-five--twenty-seven years ago. If you find anything newhere--well it's brand new. 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." Heseemed to take my measure. "I was in the East Indies two years, and inBrazil seven. Then I went to Madagascar."

  "I know a few explorers by name," I said, anticipating a yarn. "Whomdid you collect for?"

  "Dawsons. I wonder if you've heard the name of Butcher ever?"

  "Butcher--Butcher?" The name seemed vaguely present in my memory; then Irecalled _Butcher_ v. _Dawson_. "Why!" said I, "you are the man who suedthem for four years' salary--got cast away on a desert island ..."

  "Your servant," said the man with the scar, bowing. "Funny case,wasn't it? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doingnothing for it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice. Itoften used to amuse me thinking over it while I was there. I didcalculations of it--big--all over the blessed atoll in ornamentalfiguring."

  "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 ononly a month or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thighbone, 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.Sinbad'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 'em--Lord!--it's nearly twenty years ago. IfDawsons 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 aboutninety miles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You haveto go to it along 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 creosoteit smells. It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more eggs?Some of the eggs I found were a foot-and-a-half long. The swamp goescircling round, 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 byaccident. We went for eggs, me and two native chaps, in one of thoserum canoes all tied together, and found the bones at the same time. Wehad a tent and provisions for four days, and we pitched on one of thefirmer places. To think of it brings that odd tarry smell back evennow. It's funny work. You go probing into the mud with iron rods, youknow. Usually the egg gets smashed. I wonder how long it is sincethese Aepyornises really lived. The missionaries say the natives havelegends about when they were alive, but I never heard any such storiesmyself.[A] But certainly those eggs we got were as fresh as if theyhad been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down to the boat one of mynigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How I lammed intothe beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, not even 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 theseeggs out unbroken, and we were all covered with beastly black mud, andnaturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only eggs thathave ever been got out not even cracked. I went afterwards to see theones they have at the Natural History Museum in London; all of themwere cracked and just stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing.Mine were perfect, and I meant to blow them when I got back. NaturallyI was annoyed at the silly duffer dropping three hours' work just onaccount of a centipede. I hit him about rather."

  [Footnote A: No European is known to have seen a live Aepyornis,with the doubtful exception of MacAndrew, who visited Madagascar in1745.--H.G.W.]

  The man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I placed my pouch beforehim. 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. Perfectlyfresh eggs. Well, we put 'em in the boat, and then I went up tothe tent to make some coffee, leaving my two heathens down by thebeach--the one fooling about with his sting and the other helping him.It never occurred to me that the beggars would take advantage ofthe peculiar position I was in to pick a quarrel. But I suppose thecentipede poison and the kicking I had given him had upset the one--hewas always a cantankerous sort--and he persuaded 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. IncidentallyI was admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood-red itwas, in streaks--a beautiful sight. And up beyond the land rose greyand hazy to the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnacemouth. And fifty yards behind the back of me was these blessedheathen--quite regardless of the tranquil air of things--plottingto cut off with the boat and leave me all alone with three days'provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing to drink whatsoever, beyonda little keg of water. I heard a kind of yelp behind me, and therethey were in this canoe affair--it wasn't properly a boat--and,perhaps, twenty yards from land. I realised what was up in a moment.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.I aimed at the other--because he was unwounded and had the paddle, andI missed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat. I knew I had to keepcool, and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it.He didn't laugh that time. The third time I got his head, and overhe went, and the paddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for arevolver. I reckon it was fifty yards. He went right under. I don'tknow if he was shot, or simply stunned and drowned. Then I began toshout to the other chap to come back, but he huddled up in the canoeand refused to answer. So I fired out my revolver at him and never gotnear him.

  "I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was on this rotten,black beach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold afterthe sunset, and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. Itell you I damned Dawsons and Jamrachs and Museums and all the restof it just to rights. I bawled to this nigger to come back, until myvoice went up into a scream.

  "There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck withthe sharks. So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, andtook off my clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water I lostsight of the canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off. I hopedthe man in it was too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep ondrifting in the same direction. Presently it came up over the horizonagain to the south-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was wellover now and the dim of night creeping up. The stars were comingthrough the blue. I swum like a champion, though my legs and arms weresoon aching.

  "However, I came up to him by the time the stars were fairly out.As it got darker I began to see all manner of glowing things in thewater--phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I hardlyknew which was stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I wasswimming on my head or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, andthe ripple under the bows like liquid fire. I was naturally chary ofclambering up into it. I was anxious to see what he was up to first.He seemed to be lying cuddled up in a lump in the bows, and the sternwas all out of water. The thing kept turning round slowly as itdrifted--kind of waltzing, don't you know. I went to the stern, andpulled it down, expe
cting him to wake up. Then I began to clamber inwith 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 overthe calm phosphorescent sea, and with all the host of the stars aboveme, waiting for something to happen.

  "After a long time I called him by name, but he never answered. I wastoo tired to take any risks by going along to him. So we sat there. Ifancy I dozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw he was as deadas a doornail and all puffed up and purple. My three eggs and thebones were lying in the middle of the canoe, and the keg of water andsome coffee and biscuits wrapped in a Cape _Argus_ by his feet, and atin of methylated spirit underneath him. There was no paddle, nor, infact, anything except the spirit-tin that one could use as one, soI settled to drift until I was picked up. I held an inquest on him,brought in a verdict against some snake, scorpion, or centipedeunknown, and sent him overboard.

  "After that I had a drink of water and a few biscuits, and took alook round. 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 atall. I saw a sail going south-westward--looked like a schooner, buther hull never came up. Presently the sun got high in the sky andbegan to beat down upon me. Lord! It pretty near made my brains boil.I tried dipping my head in the sea, but after a while my eye fell onthe Cape _Argus_, and I lay down flat in the canoe and spread thisover me. Wonderful things these newspapers! I never read one throughthoroughly before, but it's odd what you get up to when you're alone,as I was. I suppose I read that blessed old Cape _Argus_ twenty times.The pitch in the canoe simply reeked with the heat and rose up intobig blisters.

  "I drifted ten days," said the man with the scar. "It's a little thingin the telling, isn't it? Every day was like the last. Except in themorning and the evening I never kept a look-out even--the blaze was soinfernal. I didn't see a sail after the first three days, and thoseI saw took no notice of me. About the sixth night a ship went byscarcely half a mile away from me, with all its lights ablaze and itsports open, looking like a big firefly. There was music aboard. Istood up and shouted and screamed at it. The second day I broached oneof the Aepyornis eggs, scraped the shell away at the end bit by bit,and tried it, and I was glad to find it was good enough to eat. A bitflavoury--not bad, I mean--but with something of the taste of a duck'segg. There was a kind of circular patch, about six inches across, onone side of the yolk, and with streaks of blood and a white mark likea ladder in it that I thought queer, but I did not understand whatthis meant at the time, and I wasn't inclined to be particular. Theegg lasted me three days, with biscuits and a drink of water. I chewedcoffee berries too--invigorating stuff. The second egg I opened aboutthe eighth day, and it scared me."

  The man with the scar paused. "Yes," he said, "developing."

  "I dare say you find it hard to believe. _I_ did, with the thingbefore me. There the egg had been, sunk in that cold black mud,perhaps three hundred years. But there was no mistaking it. There wasthe--what is it?--embryo, with its big head and curved back, and itsheart beating under its throat, and the yolk shrivelled up and greatmembranes spreading inside of the shell and all over the yolk. Herewas I hatching out the eggs of the biggest of all extinct birds, in alittle canoe in the midst of the Indian Ocean. If old Dawson had knownthat! It was worth four years' salary. What do _you_ think?

  "However, I had to eat that precious thing up, every bit of it, beforeI sighted the reef, and some of the mouthfuls were beastly unpleasant.I left the third one alone. I held it up to the light, but the shellwas too thick for me to get any notion of what might be happeninginside; and though I fancied I heard blood pulsing, it might have beenthe rustle in my own ears, like what you listen to in a seashell.

  "Then came the atoll. Came out of the sunrise, as it were, suddenly,close up to me. I drifted straight towards it until I was about half amile from shore, not more, and then the current took a turn, and I hadto paddle as hard as I could with my hands and bits of the Aepyornisshell to make the place. However, I got there. It was just a commonatoll about four miles round, with a few trees growing and a spring inone place, and the lagoon full of parrot-fish. I took the egg ashoreand put it in a good place well above the tide lines and in the sun,to give it all the chance I could, and pulled the canoe up safe, andloafed about prospecting. It's rum how dull an atoll is. As soon as Ihad found a spring all the interest seemed to vanish. When I was a kidI thought nothing could be finer or more adventurous than the RobinsonCrusoe business, but that place was as monotonous as a book ofsermons. I went round finding eatable things and generally thinking;but I tell you I was bored to death before the first day was out.It shows my luck--the very day I landed the weather changed. Athunderstorm went by to the north and flicked its wing over theisland, and in the night there came a drencher and a howling wind slapover us. It wouldn't have taken much, you know, to upset that canoe.

  "I was sleeping under the canoe, and the egg was luckily among thesand higher up the beach, and the first thing I remember was a soundlike a hundred pebbles hitting the boat at once, and a rush of waterover my body. I'd been dreaming of Antananarivo, and I sat up andholloaed to Intoshi to ask her what the devil was up, and clawed outat the chair where the matches used to be. Then I remembered where Iwas. There were phosphorescent waves rolling up as if they meant toeat me, and all the rest of the night as black as pitch. The air wassimply yelling. The clouds seemed down on your head almost, and therain fell as if heaven was sinking and they were baling out the watersabove the firmament. One great roller came writhing at me, like afiery serpent, and I bolted. Then I thought of the canoe, and ran downto it as the water went hissing back again; but the thing had gone. Iwondered about the egg then, and felt my way to it. It was all rightand well out of reach of the maddest waves, so I sat down beside itand cuddled it for company. Lord! what a night that was!

  "The storm was over before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloudleft in the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there werebits of plank scattered--which was the disarticulated skeleton, so tospeak, of my canoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, takingadvantage of two of the trees being together, I rigged up a kind ofstorm-shelter with these vestiges. And that day the egg hatched.

  "Hatched, sir, when my head was pillowed on it and I was asleep. Iheard a whack and felt a jar and sat up, and there was the end of theegg pecked out and a rum little brown head looking out at me. 'Lord!'I said, 'you're welcome'; and with a little difficulty he came out.

  "He was a nice friendly little chap, at first, about the size of asmall hen--very much like most other young birds, only bigger. Hisplumage was a dirty brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab thatfell off it very soon, and scarcely feathers--a kind of downy hair. Ican hardly express how pleased I was to see him. I tell you, RobinsonCrusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here wasinteresting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the frontbackwards, like a hen, and gave a chirp and began to peck about atonce, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was justnothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for I had naturallysettled he was to be called Man Friday if ever he was hatched, assoon as ever I found the egg in the canoe had developed. I was a bitanxious about his feed, so I gave him a lump of raw parrot-fish atonce. He took it, and opened his beak for more. I was glad of that,for, under the circumstances, if he'd been at all fanciful, I shouldhave had to eat him after all. You'd be surprised what an interestingbird that Aepyornis chick was. He followed me about from the verybeginning. He used to stand by me and watch while I fished in thelagoon, and go shares in anything I caught. And he was sensible, too.There were nasty green warty things, like pickled gherkins, used tolie about on the beach, and he tried one of these and it upset him. Henever even looked at any of them again.

  "And he grew. You could almost see him grow. And as I was never muchof a society man his quiet, friendly ways suited me to a T. For nearlytwo years we were as happy as we could be on that island. I had nob
usiness worries, for I knew my salary was mounting up at Dawsons'. Wewould see a sail now and then, but nothing ever came near us. Iamused myself, too, by decorating the island with designs worked insea-urchins and fancy shells of various kinds. I put AEPYORNIS ISLANDall round the place very nearly, in big letters, like what you seedone with coloured stones at railway stations in the old country, andmathematical calculations and drawings of various sorts. And I used tolie watching the blessed bird stalking round and growing, growing; andthink how I could make a living out of him by showing him about if Iever got taken off. After his first moult he began to get handsome,with a crest and a blue wattle, and a lot of green feathers at thebehind of him. And then I used to puzzle whether Dawsons had any rightto claim him or not. Stormy weather and in the rainy season we laysnug under the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I used totell 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 kindof idyll, you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it would havebeen simply just like Heaven.

  "It was about the end of the second year our little paradise wentwrong. 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 browneyes with yellow rims, set together like a man's--not out of sightof each other like a hen's. His plumage was fine--none of thehalf-mourning style of your ostrich--more like a cassowary as far ascolour and texture go. And then it was he began to cock his comb at meand give himself airs, and show signs of a nasty temper....

  "At last came a time when my fishing had been rather unlucky, and hebegan to hang about me in a queer, meditative way. I thought he mighthave been eating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was really justdiscontent on his part. I was hungry too, and when at last I landed afish I wanted it for myself. Tempers were short that morning on bothsides. He pecked at it and grabbed it, and I gave him a whack on thehead 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 hekicked me. It was like a cart-horse. I got up, and seeing he hadn'tfinished, I started off full tilt with my arms doubled up over myface. But he ran on those gawky legs of his faster than a racehorse,and kept landing out at me with sledge hammer kicks, and bringing hispickaxe down on the back of my head. I made for the lagoon, and wentin up to my neck. He stopped at the water, for he hated getting hisfeet wet, and began to make a shindy, something like a peacock's, onlyhoarser. He started strutting up and down the beach. I'll admit I feltsmall to see this blessed fossil lording it there. And my head andface were all bleeding, and--well, my body just one jelly of bruises.

  "I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave him alone for a bit,until the affair blew over. I shinned up the tallest palm-tree, andsat there thinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurtby anything before or since. It was the brutal ingratitude of thecreature. I'd been more than a brother to him. I'd hatched him,educated him. A great gawky, out-of-date bird! And me a humanbeing--heir of the ages and all that.

  "I thought after a time he'd begin to see things in that lighthimself, and feel a little sorry for his behaviour. I thought if Iwas to catch some nice little bits of fish, perhaps, and go to himpresently in a casual kind of way, and offer them to him, he might dothe sensible thing. It took me some time to learn how unforgiving andcantankerous an extinct bird can be. Malice!

  "I won't tell you all the little devices I tried to get that birdround again. I simply can't. It makes my cheek burn with shame evennow to think of the snubs and buffets I had from this infernalcuriosity. I tried violence. I chucked lumps of coral at him from asafe distance, but he only swallowed them. I shied my open knife athim and almost lost it, though it was too big for him to swallow. Itried starving him out and struck fishing, but he took to pickingalong the beach at low water after worms, and rubbed along on that.Half my time I spent up to my neck in the lagoon, and the rest up thepalm-trees. One of them was scarcely high enough, and when he caughtme up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with the calves of my legs.It got unbearable. I don't know if you have ever tried sleeping up apalm-tree. It gave me the most horrible nightmares. Think of the shameof it, too! Here was this extinct animal mooning about my island likea 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 straightthat I 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 he only snapped his beak at me. Great ugly bird--all legs andneck!

  "I shouldn't like to say how long that went on altogether. I'd havekilled him sooner if I'd known how. However, I hit on a way ofsettling him at last. It is a South American dodge. I joined all myfishing-lines together with stems of seaweed and things and madea stoutish string, perhaps twelve yards in length or more, and Ifastened two lumps of coral rock to the ends of this. It took me sometime to do, because every now and then I had to go into the lagoon orup a tree as the fancy took me. This I whirled rapidly round my head,and then let it go at him. The first time I missed, but the next timethe string caught his legs beautifully, and wrapped round them againand again. Over he went. I threw it standing waist-deep in the lagoon,and as soon as he went down I was out of the water and sawing at hisneck with my knife ...

  "I don't like to think of that even now. I felt like a murderer whileI did it, though my anger was hot against him. When I stood over himand saw him bleeding on the white sand, and his beautiful great legsand neck writhing in his last agony ... Pah!

  "With that tragedy loneliness came upon me like a curse. Good Lord!you can't imagine how I missed that bird. I sat by his corpse andsorrowed over him, and shivered as I looked round the desolate, silentreef. I thought of what a jolly little bird he had been when he washatched, and of a thousand pleasant tricks he had played before hewent wrong. I thought if I'd only wounded him I might have nursed himround into a better understanding. If I'd had any means of digginginto the coral rock I'd have buried him. I felt exactly as if he washuman. As it was, I couldn't think of eating him, so I put him in thelagoon, and the little fishes picked him clean. I didn't even save thefeathers. Then one day a chap cruising about in a yacht had a fancy tosee if my atoll still existed.

  "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 intothe sea 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 a thigh a yard long, they thought they had reached the top ofthe scale, and called him _Aepyornis maximus_. Then someone turnedup another thighbone four feet six or more, and that they called_Aepyornis Titan_. Then your _vastus_ was found after old Havers died,in his collection, and then a _vastissimus_ turned up."

  "Winslow was telling me as much," said the man with the scar. "If theyget any more Aepyornises, he reckons some scientific swell will goand burst a bloodvessel. But it was a queer thing to happen to a man;wasn't it--altogether?"