and by the time he wakes, rather late, it won’t matter anymore.
• • •
Hugh Blackstone, on the bridge, observes, with his glass, the horizon’s edge. Land is there, lives being lived, though giving no sign: no lights at night, no sails by day, it is odd is it not, a mode of life difficult to imagine. As he stands one of his men approaches, speaking quickly, with a faint air of emergency.
One of the smallboats is missing. Gone, sir, and the oars, too, sir, gone without a trace.
Gone? What do you mean?
The withering glance of Blackstone.
I don’t know where it’s gone, sir, but it’s gone, and cook says a sack of his best salt fish is gone, too, an’ one of potatoes, and a cask of water.
That’s impossible. I suppose the fairies done it?
The faint derisive smile, this is something to be avoided. Even if Doyle does think the fairies done it, he will not say so now; and as far as Hugh Blackstone is concerned, that is a good thing.
I don’t know, sir.
Very well, Doyle. I’ll deal with it.
Wisp of Doyle, running away.
Blackstone at the rail now, smiling still. Smiling.
Well, I’ll be damned.
Training his glass at the edge of the earth.
• • •
By lunchtime it is confirmed that Felix Girard has gone. His bed has not been slept in; John McIntyre has found a note, pinned inside his
Compendium of American Psittaciformes
, which reads
, I will show you, McIntyre, you bastard! You puny man, now you will see!
Clotilde is in tears. She can’t find her dear Papa anywhere. And neither can anybody else. A search of the ship is fruitless, the import of the note clear: he has taken one of the smallboats and some supplies, and set out to row himself to Punta Yalkubul.
God help him
, says Hugh Blackstone, laughing,
he’s just mad enough to succeed!
Everyone’s looking at the horizon now. If the
Narcissus
is a smut in a saucer, then what is Felix Girard in a smallboat?
All that immensity.
And my father, sleeping. He doesn’t even know. He’s dreaming, maybe; of what, who can tell. Far distances, perhaps, or the opposite of that, the delicate pink whorl of one particular ear.
I’ve taken him this far. The rest is inevitable.
He won’t be back, my grandfather. The search party, sent out despite Hugh Blackstone’s reluctance, will run aground on what they think is Punta Yalkubul, finding there, instead, a small island, ten miles in circumference, consisting of an east-facing coral-sand beach and a west-facing red mangrove swamp crouched over a shallow lagoon formed by a coral reef. Sand flats extend prettily, at low tide, perhaps three quarters of a mile to the south. All that will be left here, of my grandfather, is the mark of his keel in the sand, and a plug of tobacco, left behind when he pulled his smallboat through the shrubbery, and rowed off the other side.
All the days they spent, staring out at this crust in the sea. We all have our illusions.
Though Felix Girard could not be produced, the search party brought back samples of what life there was. There were beauties there, in the place where my grandfather disappeared, the place where I, too, now, am bound: honeycombed corals, some growing in thin, perpendicular points, others forming thick, fawn-colored antlers, still others round, green knobs, some convoluted like brains; brittle, whip-legged starfish, delicate shrimps, minute, sparkling amphipods, alive, still, in the jars, before Harry Owen kills them; sea whips and sea fans; the sea cucumber,
Holothuriae
, in bright yellow and brown; sponges in every color, every shape; beautiful shells; and a diminutive sole, two inches long, marbled gold and black above, creamy white below—named, for the first time, by he who catalogued it, Owen’s Darling Solenette,
Monochirus amatus Owenii
.
He would have loved this stuff, my grandfather, if he’d seen it.
There’s solace here for some, for Harry Owen, for my father. He is interested in the smallest finds, in the sand that
• • •
Hugh Blackstone, on the bridge, observes, with his glass, the horizon’s edge. Land is there, lives being lived, though giving no sign: no lights at night, no sails by day, it is odd is it not, a mode of life difficult to imagine. As he stands one of his men approaches, speaking quickly, with a faint air of emergency.
One of the smallboats is missing. Gone, sir, and the oars, too, sir, gone without a trace.
Gone? What do you mean?
The withering glance of Blackstone.
I don’t know where it’s gone, sir, but it’s gone, and cook says a sack of his best salt fish is gone, too, an’ one of potatoes, and a cask of water.
That’s impossible. I suppose the fairies done it?
The faint derisive smile, this is something to be avoided. Even if Doyle does think the fairies done it, he will not say so now; and as far as Hugh Blackstone is concerned, that is a good thing.
I don’t know, sir.
Very well, Doyle. I’ll deal with it.
Wisp of Doyle, running away.
Blackstone at the rail now, smiling still. Smiling.
Well, I’ll be damned.
Training his glass at the edge of the earth.
• • •
By lunchtime it is confirmed that Felix Girard has gone. His bed has not been slept in; John McIntyre has found a note, pinned inside his
Compendium of American Psittaciformes
, which reads
, I will show you, McIntyre, you bastard! You puny man, now you will see!
Clotilde is in tears. She can’t find her dear Papa anywhere. And neither can anybody else. A search of the ship is fruitless, the import of the note clear: he has taken one of the smallboats and some supplies, and set out to row himself to Punta Yalkubul.
God help him
, says Hugh Blackstone, laughing,
he’s just mad enough to succeed!
Everyone’s looking at the horizon now. If the
Narcissus
is a smut in a saucer, then what is Felix Girard in a smallboat?
All that immensity.
And my father, sleeping. He doesn’t even know. He’s dreaming, maybe; of what, who can tell. Far distances, perhaps, or the opposite of that, the delicate pink whorl of one particular ear.
I’ve taken him this far. The rest is inevitable.
He won’t be back, my grandfather. The search party, sent out despite Hugh Blackstone’s reluctance, will run aground on what they think is Punta Yalkubul, finding there, instead, a small island, ten miles in circumference, consisting of an east-facing coral-sand beach and a west-facing red mangrove swamp crouched over a shallow lagoon formed by a coral reef. Sand flats extend prettily, at low tide, perhaps three quarters of a mile to the south. All that will be left here, of my grandfather, is the mark of his keel in the sand, and a plug of tobacco, left behind when he pulled his smallboat through the shrubbery, and rowed off the other side.
All the days they spent, staring out at this crust in the sea. We all have our illusions.
Though Felix Girard could not be produced, the search party brought back samples of what life there was. There were beauties there, in the place where my grandfather disappeared, the place where I, too, now, am bound: honeycombed corals, some growing in thin, perpendicular points, others forming thick, fawn-colored antlers, still others round, green knobs, some convoluted like brains; brittle, whip-legged starfish, delicate shrimps, minute, sparkling amphipods, alive, still, in the jars, before Harry Owen kills them; sea whips and sea fans; the sea cucumber,
Holothuriae
, in bright yellow and brown; sponges in every color, every shape; beautiful shells; and a diminutive sole, two inches long, marbled gold and black above, creamy white below—named, for the first time, by he who catalogued it, Owen’s Darling Solenette,
Monochirus amatus Owenii
.
He would have loved this stuff, my grandfather, if he’d seen it.
There’s solace here for some, for Harry Owen, for my father. He is interested in the smallest finds, in the sand that
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