Evening star., 1909-08-29
The Floating Forest
Continued from page s

sides; though these the river freed again.
Meanwhile, safe in part of the hold where
solid mass, Mary Vance made her home as in a
cave. Here, distraught in mind but hale IN
body, she continued to exist MANY of the pro-
visions of the ship were yet intact. The creek
Of fresh water ran beside the very keel of the
SeTapis and there were tropical fruits that
offered themselves to her hand on every side.
The trees and flowers cast their seed on the
earthen covering of the ship, and soon tropl-
cal garden began to bloom, with interviewer
leaves and ferns and jungle creepers. Embla-
zoned blooms and tufted and clustered growths
of hundred shapes and colors began to flour
ish there. About the upright mainmast dense
host of sturdy vines entwined themselves like
green serpents and made mighty column OF
foliage Several trees shot up where the soil
lay thickest Birds mated and nested in her
trees: strange furtive animals made their
haunts and burrows in the earth on her breast.
These became accustomed to the familiar APP
partition of the gaunt and long haired creature
who emerged from what seemed hole IN the
earth, called to them in plaintive tones, and fed
them strange food when they came. Brilliant
emerald parrots and flaming toucans with inn
mense bills, red as blood, futtered about her
like living flashes of gorgeous fire; squawking,
crested cockatoos white snow, perched on
her shoulders and ate from her hand. Huge
lizards there were, plated with metallic and
shimmering coats Of mail, which were unafraid
and lay basking lazily beside her in the sun.
thicket upon the ship and soon learned to come
with her litter of young and lick the hands of
the woman who wrought them no harm. This
jackal and her whelps followed Mary Vance as
dogs follow their master. Then, obsessed by
some rooted idea, the eery woman began to
raise tiny mound of earth, decked it with
flowers and ferns. and planted tiny cross upon
it. Here she often knelt and prayed, prayed
for the babe and the husband that were lost.
So the Scraps Law for five wears buried in her
fr re of and
her name was spoken no more upon the seas.
IN the fifth year of the slumbers, in the season
of the rains, great flood devastated the
mountains and inland valleys until the narrow
sea gulch roared and raved with the rushing
waters. The Scraps was lifted from her nest
in the riverbed. tore loose from her anchor
chains OF Towering creepers and clinging vines,
and spewed forth into the sea.
There, like some ancient barge of state, a
fragment torn from some rich pr1meval forest,
trailing her long grasses and mats of tangled
ferns through the waters, she roved idly, the
sport of every wind and current. The salt
spray soon blighted many of the jungle growths,
and they hung down from her black bulwarks,
Yusted and yellow like rotting sails. But there
were juicy fruits that continued to grow, and
every day the heavy tropical rains came down.
Several brooding BIRDS brilliant parrots, and
flaming toucans, chained by instinct to their
nests remained in the floating forest with their
mates. Seafowl came and lined the branches
of the trees and flew screaming about the
strange drifting slet.
The changing impulses of the ocean carried
her west, then south. Once at night she lay in
the path of steamer from Sydney, boats
length to port or starboard, and the iron vessel
and the wooden had run their heads together
like two frantic bulls. The watch that
steamer spoke in awed voices of specter island
they had passed during the night SO close that
the branches of trees had scraped the shrouds.
And the Lascar helnsman avowed he had seen
ghost aboard it, the specter of woman that
walled, and green eyed beasts that howled.
Their Captain, who swore by his charts, cursed
them for drunken fools. But when he saw,
caught in the ratlines, small twig newly
broken from the bough. f1uttering its green
leaves in the wind, his heart was confounded
within him. Thus had the Scraps once more
become the blind, dumb and mindless terror
of the deep, floating menace hidden under
beautiful robes of flowers.
SILENT, swift, and sure out of the night came
magnificent clipper ship southbound from
Vancouver to Kingston in Jamaica. Every
sail was set, the taut ropes sang in the breeze,
her hull seemed lost beneath her towers of
straining canvas. Her Captain stood in the
bow gazing toward the stern his eyes rested
on the vague form of the helmsman in the dull
glow of the pinnacle lamp. To left and right of
him the red and green stars of the ships lights
shone sharp and bright as living jewels They
were the eyes of the ship. eyes that not,
yet could be seen.
black bulk, inert, blind, and terrible, the