Geo flung his eyes up and tried in one moment to envelop whatever he
saw, whatever it would be. Beneath the roar was a tide of quiet. The
sand along the naked crescent was dull at depressions, mirror bright at
rises. At the jungle's edge, leaves and fronds sped multi-textured
rippling along the foliage. Each single fragment in that green carpet
hung up in the sun was one leaf, he reflected, with two sides, and an
entire system of skeleton and veins, as his hand and arm had been. And
maybe one day would drop off, too. He looked from rock to rock now. Each
was different, shaped and lined distinctly, but losing detail as the
ship floated out, as the memory of his entire adventure was losing
detail. That one there was like a bull's head half submerged; those two
flat ones together on the sand looked like the stretched wings of
eagles. The waves, measured and magnificent, followed one another onto
the sand, like the varying, never duplicated rhythm of a good poem,
peaceful, ordered, and calm. He tried to pour the chaos of Urson
drowning from his mind onto the water. It flowed into each glass-green
wave's trough in which it rode, suddenly quiet, up to the beach. He
spread the pain in his own body over the web of foam and green
shimmering, and was surprised because it fit easily, hung there well,
quieted, very much quieted. Somewhere at the foot of his brain, an
understanding was beginning to effloresce with the sea's water, under
the sun.
Geo turned away from the rail, and with the wet deck slipping under his
bare feet, he walked toward the forecastle. He released his broken limb,
and his hand hung at his side.
* * * * *
When Snake came down that evening, Geo was lying on his back in the
bunk, following the grain of the wood on the bottom of the bed above
his. He had his good arm behind his neck now. Snake touched his
shoulder.
"What is it?" Geo asked, turning on his side and sitting out from under
the bunk.
Snake held out the leather purse to Geo.
"Huh?" Geo asked. "Didn't you give them to Argo yet?"
Snake nodded.
"Well, why didn't she take them. Look, I don't want to see them again."
Snake pushed the purse toward him again, and added, _Look_ ...
Geo took the purse, opened the draw string, and turned the contents out
in his hand: there were three chains, on each of which was a gold coin
fastened by a hole near the edge. Geo frowned. "How come these are in
here?" he asked. "I thought--where are the jewels?"
_In ... ocean_, Snake said. _Urson ... switched ... them._
"What are you talking about?" demanded Geo. "What is it?"
_Don't ... want ... tell ... you ..._
"I don't care what you want, you little thief." Geo grabbed him by the
shoulder. "Tell me!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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