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Page 24
He thought of all their days on the island, and, incidentally, of Louis
Satanette's frequent comings. The Frenchman was a beautiful, versatile
fellow. He sailed a boat, he swam, he fished knowingly, he sang like an
angel, leaning his head back against a tree to let the moonlight touch
up his ivory face and silky moustache and eyebrows. He had firm,
marble-white fingers, nicely veined, on which reckless exposure to sun
and wind had no effect, and the kindliest blue eyes that ever beamed
equal esteem upon man and woman. Sometimes this Satanette came in a
blue-flannel suit, the collar turned well back from the throat, and in a
broad straw hat wound with pink and white tarlatan. He looked like a
flower,--if any flower ever expressed along with its beauty the powerful
nerve of manliness.
Frequently he sailed out from Magog House and stayed all night on the
island, slinging his own hammock between trees. Then he and Adam rose
early and trolled for lunge in deep water under the cliff. In the
afternoon they all plunged into the lake, Eva swimming like a
cardinal-flower afloat. Adam was careful to keep near her, and finally
to help her into the boat, where she sat with her scarlet bathing-dress
shining in the sun and her drenched hair curling in an arch around her
face.
All these days flashed before Adam while he put a slow foot out on the
tent-rug.
There was nobody about the camp when he had made his morning toilet and
unclosed the tent-flaps, so he built a fire in the stove, hung the
bedding to sun, and set out the cots. A blueness which was not humid
filtered itself through the air everywhere, and fold upon fold of it
seemed rising from invisible censers on the mainland.
Eva hailed him from the lake. She came rowing across the sun's track.
The water was fresh and blue, glittering like millions of alternately
dull and burnished scales.
Adam drew the boat in and lifted her out, more tenderly but with more
reticence than usual.
"You don't know where I have been, laddie," exclaimed Eva. "Look at all
the fern and broken bushes in the boat; and I have my pocket sagged
down with gold-streaked quartz. I went around to the other side of the
island, where the counterfeiters' hole is, to look into it while the
morning sun on the lake threw a reflection."
"There's nothing wonderful to be seen there."
"How will we know that? The rocks sound hollow all about, and there may
be a great cavern full of counterfeiters' relics. Oh, Adam, I saw Louis
Satanette's sail!"
"He comes early this morn."
"I think he has been camping by himself over on the lake-shore. He says
we'll explore the counterfeiters' hole, and let us go directly after
breakfast."
"What is it worth the exploring?" said Adam. "Four rocks set on end, and
you crawl in on your hands and knees, look at the dark, and back out
again. It's but a burrow, and ends against the hill's heart of rock.
I've to row across yonder for the eggs and butter and milk."
The smoke rising from different points on the mainland kept sifting and
sifting until at high noon the air was pearl-gray. As if there was not
enough shadow betwixt him and the sun, Adam sat in his boat at the foot
of the cliff, where brown glooms never rose quite off the water. He
looked down until sight could pierce no farther, and, though a fish or
two glided in beautiful curves beneath his eye, he had no hook dropped
in as his excuse for loitering.
The eggs and butter and milk for which he had rowed across the lake were
covered with green leaves under one of the boat-benches.
Straight above him, mass on mass, rose those protruding ribs of the
earth, the rocks. He lay back in the boat's stern and gazed at their
summit of pinetrees and ferns. Bunches of gigantic ferns sprouted from
every crevice, and not a leaf of the array but was worth half a
lifetime's study. Yet Adam's eye wandered aimlessly over it all, as if
it gave him no pleasure. Nor did he seem to wish that a little figure
would bend from the summit, half swallowed in greenness and made a
vegetable mermaid from the waist downward, to call to him. He was so
haggard the freckles stood in bold relief upon his face and neck.
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