Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  Simon and Canon Tallis sat by their fire.

  “But you don’t think we’re going to have to stay here more than one more night, do you?”

  “No, Simon. If nobody has found us by tomorrow morning I think we will have to start heading toward the sea. We’ve run out of edible berries within moderate radius of our campsite. But you did nobly indeed to get us those coconuts. I was beginning to feel dehydrated.”

  “So was I,” Simon said. “I don’t think anything has ever tasted so good.” He looked at his scratched hands. His thighs were scraped from the descent from the high tree. Why did the coconuts have to be at the very top? But they still had two coconuts for morning.

  Tallis said, “I’ve been given too many warnings about the water in South American streams and rivers to risk drinking, no matter how clean that nearby stream may look. There are tiny organisms which bite and then lay eggs in one’s bloodstream, for instance, which cause a slow death. It’s not worth the risk.”

  The dark seemed to increase around them. Simon broke the silence to ask, “When Quentin Phair came to see about his mother’s inheritance in North Florida and Georgia and South Carolina, was it like this?”

  “It was probably more like this than like the country you grew up in. Our ancestors braved considerable danger without making any fuss about it.”

  “We’re not making much fuss, are we?”

  “You’re not,” Canon Tallis said. “I’m doing a good deal of grunting and groaning over my physical exertions. I’m woefully out of condition. Now, Simon, you take the first watch tonight, and I’ll sleep for an hour or so. Don’t hesitate to wake me if you see or hear anything.”

  “Are you ever frightened?” Simon asked as the canon arranged himself on his bed of moss and fern. He was a large man, a little too heavy. His bald head caught and reflected the light from the fire.

  “Frequently.”

  “Are you frightened now?”

  “No. There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to be frightened. But I am tired from our labors. Good night, Simon.”

  “Good night, Uncle Father.” Simon noticed that the priest kept his wooden spear under his hand.

  The night seemed even more alive with sound than had the night before, or perhaps his ears were more attuned to it. He thought he could even hear insects moving along the rough bark of the tree trunks. The birds settled down for the night, but more noisily than the canon. They seemed to be passing along messages to each other. He was sure he recognized the chittering of monkeys, although they had seen none. The day had been brightened by the wings of birds, but the only animals they had seen were a kind of squirrel, and many lizards of varying sizes.

  Simon stiffened and put his hand on his own spear as he saw two eyes reflecting their firelight. He threw another piece of wood on the fire, but he couldn’t use too much wood or it wouldn’t last until morning. The eyes retreated.

  Simon looked over at the canon, whose body was relaxed. The palm-leaf hat was over his eyes. He was breathing quietly, not snoring, but the relaxed breathing of sleep.

  The boy turned and the eyes were there again, this time closer. He took a stick and stirred the fire, but the eyes did not go away. He took a small stone and threw it as hard as he could. Whatever beast it was, it moved heavily, with a crackling of twigs, but retreated only a few inches. The eyes looked small and ugly in the firelight, but Simon did not think the animal was as small as the eyes would indicate. He tried staring it down. The eyes blinked, but opened again. There was a small snap of twigs as the beast moved forward until Simon could see what it was: a wild boar.

  With trembling hands he grabbed the spear, shouting, “Go away!”

  Canon Tallis was awake and on his feet in seconds, holding his spear lightly in his right hand.

  There was a horrendous noise of grunting, screeching beast, and the canon shouting, “Out of the way!”

  Simon stepped back, spear in hand, ready to move in, but keeping out of the way of the canon’s feet. The snarling of the animal was the most repellent sound he had ever heard, but then the snarling changed to a scream which was worse. The canon, too, was breathing heavily with effort. His spear was deep in the boar, but the animal thrashed wildly and with enormous strength, and Simon could see that the canon was beginning to tire.

  Suddenly the boar turned so that Simon, putting all his weight into his action, could thrust his own spear into the leathery hide.

  But the raging beast was stronger than both of them, although it no longer wanted to attack. With two spears buried deep in its flesh it burst away from them and crashed into the forest.

  “Will it come back?” Simon panted.

  Canon Tallis was taking great gulps of the dark, humid air. “I doubt it. I think we wounded it pretty badly. That was good work, Simon. I’m not sure I could have kept up much longer. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re a brave boy.” Canon Tallis stretched one leg toward the fire. The dark cloth of the trousers was ripped from thigh to ankle, and blood dripped on the ground.

  “Oh, sir, he hurt you!”

  The canon examined an ugly gash along his calf. “It’s only a flesh wound. But I ought to wash it.”

  “Not the stream,” Simon said. “It would be as dangerous as drinking it.”

  “Bright lad. You’re quite right. I’ll let it bleed a bit, and the blood itself will clean it. See if you can gather me some clean ferns and I’ll stanch the blood with them.”

  When the wound was covered with fresh green, and the bleeding stopped, the canon said, “I doubt if either of us will do much sleeping for the rest of the night. Let’s go over, once more, everything we know about the theft of the portrait and the murder of the Phair. Each time you tell me, you remember something new.”

  Dr. Wordsworth and Dr. Eisenstein were playing cards in the salon. All the portholes were open and the fans going but it was still hot and stuffy. Dr. Wordsworth slammed down her cards.

  “I’m going to Hurtado.”

  “Ines, no!”

  “I should have gone immediately and I was too involved in myself, as usual, to realize.”

  “But why? What good will it do?”

  “Don’t you see that if Hurtado knows Phair was involved in smuggling, it may be of immense importance?”

  “Yes, I suppose it may be, but then you will have to tell him …”

  “Everything. It’s all right. As far as society is concerned, my time in jail has paid my debt, and my life has been impeccable since. I left for the United States as soon as I got out of jail and not a thing that I’ve done in my new country cannot be looked at in the light of the sun. And my American passport will help.” She stood up. She looked tall and elegant in a long white skirt slit up the sides to show her shapely legs. She smiled at her friend. “Hurtado is a man. When I dressed for dinner I think I already knew what I had to do.”

  “Would you like me to come with you?”

  “No. Thank you. Though he will probably want to talk with you afterward. You’ve known me longer than most people. So perhaps you’d better stay here and be available.”

  “Of course. You’re very brave, Ines.”

  “Hurtado may think it a trifle late.” Dr. Wordsworth left the salon.

  Miss Leonis lay in the fragrant dark of Dragonlake. The high dwelling was, as Umar Xanai had promised, far cooler than the hotel had been. Air flowed beneath, above, through. She could hear the water lapping gently against the pilings of the dwelling huts in the lake. Somewhere nearby a night bird was singing sweetly. Whatever she had been given to drink had indeed helped her. For a while she had thought that her overtaxed heart was giving out, that she was going to die then and there among a strange people in a strange land with Simon who knows where.

  Now she thought that she would be able to hold on until Simon was found at any rate and some of the confusions were straightened out—not only about Forsyth Phair, but about Simon and the Quiztanos.


  But why was her portrait of Bolivar in the Umara’s dwelling place? It still stood there, although she could not see it in the dark.

  —They will not be satisfied with the portrait, she thought.—They want Simon. What are we to do?

  12

  THE RETURN OF THE PHAIR

  In the morning el senor comandante Hurtado assembled the passengers and told them that he had arrested Jan for the theft of the portrait and the murder of Forsyth Phair.

  Simon slept fitfully toward morning. When he woke up, the canon was putting the last few twigs on the fire. His face looked flushed and feverish.

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  Tallis indicated his leg. “It seems to be a bit infected.”

  “Can you walk on it?”

  “I don’t think so, Simon.”

  “Well, then,” Simon said after a moment, “I’d better try to find us some berries and stuff for breakfast. We’ve got another coconut, so we won’t get dehydrated. I’ll have to go a little farther afield for the berries, sir.”

  “Not until daylight.”

  “No, sir.”

  “And then stay within voice hail, Simon. It would be very easy to get lost. Call out every few seconds, and I’ll call back.”

  “Yes, sir. I will. I’m sorry about your leg. Does it hurt much?”

  “A bit.”

  “You were like St. George killing the dragon last night.”

  “A far cry, I’m afraid.”

  “You were close enough to St. George for me. Wild boars are probably more dangerous than dragons. Hurtado or someone should be along to find us any moment now.”

  “Yes, Simon. They ought. It should be daylight soon.”

  Miss Leonis rose early at Dragonlake, as she did at Pharaoh. She awoke feeling refreshed, although her heart still seemed to rattle like a dry leaf.

  With considerable effort she dressed in her blue and white dimity, and folded the soft gown she had been given to sleep in. Then she climbed carefully down the steps of the Umara’s dwelling place and walked across the greensward to the lake’s edge. Her breath came in small, shallow gasps.

  Umar Xanai was there before her, alone, sitting in Charles’s favorite position.

  The old woman sat down silently, slightly to one side and behind him. Around her she could sense the sleeping village. Someone was moving on the porch of one of the Caring Places. Soon Dragonlake would be awake. All around her she heard bird song. A fish flashed out of the lake and disappeared beneath the dark waters. Above her the stars dimmed and the sky lightened.

  When the sun sent its first rays above the mountain, Umar Xanai rose and stretched his arms upward. He began to chant. Miss Leonis could not understand the velvet Quiztano words, but it seemed clear to her that the old chieftain was encouraging the sun in its rising, urging it, enticing it, giving the sun every psychic aid in his power to lift itself up out of the darkness and into the light. When the great golden disc raised itself clear of the mountain the chanting became a triumphal, joyful song.

  At the close of the paean of praise the old man turned to the old woman and bent down to greet her with the three formal kisses.

  She asked, “You are here every morning?”

  He nodded, smiling. “It is part of my duties as chief of the Quiztanos.”

  “To help the sun rise?”

  “That is my work.”

  “It would not rise without you?”

  “Oh, yes, it would rise. But as we are dependent on the sun for our crops, for our lives, it is our courtesy to give the sun all the help in our power—and our power is considerable.”

  “I do not doubt that.”

  “We believe,” the old man said quietly, “that everything is dependent on everything else, that the Power behind the stars has not made anything to be separate from anything else. The sun does not rise in the sky in loneliness; we are with him. The moon would be lost in isolation if we did not greet her with song. The stars dance together, and we dance with them.”

  Miss Leonis smiled with joy. “I, too, believe that. I am grateful that you help the sun each morning. And when the moon wanes and the sky is dark—you are with the dying moon, are you not?”

  “When the tide ebbs and the moon is dark, we are there.”

  “My tide is ebbing.”

  “We know, Señora Phair.”

  “It will be an inconvenience to you. I am sorry.”

  “Señora Phair, it is part of our Gift. We will be with you.”

  “I am not afraid.”

  “But you are afraid for the Phair.”

  “I am afraid for Simon.”

  “Do not fear, Señora Phair. You have come to redeem the past.”

  “That is not in my power,” she said sadly.

  He looked at her calmly. “You will be given the power.”

  “I can make no decisions for Simon.”

  “But you will allow him to make decisions for himself ?”

  “I have always tried to do so. I will not try to influence him by telling him that I will not be returning to South Carolina. I wish I shared your certainty that he is all right.”

  Umar Xanai nodded calmly. “He will be here before long. The Englishman with him has been hurt, and has to be carried. A litter will be made for him in the same way that a litter was once made for the Phair.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  He smiled, all the wrinkles in his tan face fanning upward. “We have our own ways of seeing. They will be found today, your boy and his friend. I am not sure when. But today.”

  “I am grateful.”

  “Come.” With amazing agility he sprang to his feet. “It is time that we broke our fast. You have need.”

  Miss Leonis accepted his strong hand; she could not have risen without him. “Thank you. I am grateful to have a few more days. It would ease me if I could be certain about Simon. Can you keep me going that long?”

  He looked at her steadily. “You will have that much time. It is our Gift. Sometimes when we have sent out young men to the cities, to the hospitals and medical schools, the Gift is laughed at. Sometimes our young men laugh, too, and do not return.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “The Great God Science. It has failed us, because it was never meant to be a god, but only a few true scientists understand that.”

  Again he smiled. “There are things that you must teach us, Senora Phair. The young Umaras seek time with you.”

  “They will teach me, too.”

  He held out his arm to support her, and together they walked slowly back to the village.

  To the passengers on the Orion it seemed even hotter and more humid the second day in port than it had the first.

  But now that Hurtado had made an arrest, the unloading of the ship began. No one was allowed on the foredeck, though the passengers could watch through the windows in the salon. One of the sailors sat in his high cab and manipulated the levers which controlled the great yellow cranes. From the promenade deck the passengers could see the station wagon hover over the dock, as the hearse had hovered, then drop down gently, all four wheels touching earth simultaneously.

  Dr. Wordsworth and Dr. Eisenstein left the salon for the deck, seeking what little breeze there was. They leaned on the rail and watched a large crate swing onto the waiting mandibles of a fork lift. “They know what they’re doing,” Dr. Wordsworth said with considerable admiration.

  Dr. Eisenstein turned from the dock and toward her companion. “Ines, do you really think it was Jan?”

  “Hurtado’s no fool,” Dr. Wordsworth said, “but I confess I was surprised. However, since I’ve been unable to come up with a prime suspect myself, I have to assume that he knows what he’s doing.”

  “But after what you told him about Mr. Phair being Fernando—”

  Despite the heat Dr. Wordsworth shivered. “Interesting,” she remarked casually, “how heat can affect one like cold. Hurtado was extraordinarily courteous with me. I have great respect for him.
But has it occurred to you that what I told him may have been what he needed to put his finger on Jan?”

  “But Jan is so open and friendly, and almost as vulnerable and innocent-seeming as Geraldo.”

  “Don’t you realize, Ruth, that the innocent and the vulnerable are the very ones preyed upon by types like F.P.?”

  “But Jan—!”

  “I don’t like it, either. But I’m grateful it’s over.”

  Dr. Eisenstein glanced at the chair where she had put her straw bag of notebooks and academic periodicals. “Mr. Hurtado says we will be allowed ashore, soon. I’m glad he wasn’t too hard on you last night.”

  Dr. Wordsworth laughed, a more spontaneous laugh than her companion had heard in some time. “Hurtado is an intelligent and successful and highly desirable man. I think he found me attractive—though if he had suspected me of murder that would have made no difference. But, do you know, Ruth, it’s funny, theatrical Vermeer I’m drawn to. Human beings are the most peculiar of all creatures.”

  Dr. Eisenstein smiled. “The feeling between you and Mr. Vermeer appears to be mutual.”

  “Here you go, matchmaking again. No, Ruth. Vermeer beams on the entire world and only he knows what goes on behind that smile. And I certainly have no desire to lose my heart to a Dutch consul in an obscure backwash of a country which is no longer mine.”

  “He knows a lot about anthropology—”

  “Which makes up for all deficiencies in your eyes. Oh, I know he’s not the idiot he appears. But all I meant was that Hurtado has the machismo and it doesn’t even touch me. I’m sorry about Jan. I liked him. But Fernando Propice was a master at corrupting innocence.”

  Dr. Eisenstein put a restraining hand on Dr. Wordsworth’s arm. “Look—”

  Jan, his face pale, was walking down the gangplank, somewhat awkwardly, because he was handcuffed. A policeman walked in front of him, another behind him. The two women watched as he was pushed into a police car and driven off.

  There had been scant pickings for breakfast, or for lunch, as Simon and Canon Tallis carefully called the bare handful of berries that made up their meals. They drank the milk from the last coconut, and chewed on a few greens which Simon recognized as being like the edible greens around Pharaoh, picked by Aunt Leonis and cooked with a little white bacon. But cooked greens and greens raw are quite different; these tasted bitter, though at least they contained a little water and were worth chewing for that alone, for the coconut milk did little to assuage their thirst. Simon knew that if it had not been for Canon Tallis, he would long ago have cupped up water from the brook.