The Yellow Admiral Read Free Page A

him in, cut him short with a painless waft, and so put him up for you.' Stephen brought a soft packet from his bosom, unwrapped it, and passed a small glass case.
    After the briefest moment Blaine's happy, eager look changed. He said, 'You would never make game of me, Stephen? Not on such a subject?'
    'Pray look closer. Pray turn him upside down. Pray compare him with those you have.'
    Moving slowly, and with backward glances, Sir Joseph moved over to his cabinet, drawer after drawer of beautifully mounted insects. He held his present over the relevant specimens, and slowly, in a voice of wonder, he said, 'By God. It is a melanistic Charaxes: a perfect, wholly melanistic Charaxes jasius.' He turned the orthodox butterflies and his new acquisition over and over, holding them to the light and murmuring about the exact repetition of the pattern and the exact reversal. 'I never knew it occurred in Charaxes, Stephen - no books, no collection has ever recorded it. Oh Stephen, what a treasure! No wonder you clapped a bell-jar over him. God bless you, my dear friend. You could not have made me happier. I shall write a paper on him for the Proceedings - such a paper!' He went slowly back to his chair, privately turning the case in various directions and his face rosy with contentment.
    But the recording part of his mind was still intent upon Stephen's account of this idyllic ramble through a variety of landscapes, all more or less torn by recent or even actual warfare. 'How I wish I had a better memory for geography,' he said. 'If we were at the Admiralty I could follow on a map; but as it is I cannot understand how you escaped from the raiding parties or foragers of either side, and from the notice of both military intelligence and our people.'
    'It is almost impossible to explain without a chart, since we rarely steered the same course for more than two watches.' Dr Maturin, as a ship's surgeon, was rather fond of using nautical expressions, correct nautical expressions on occasion; and this he repeated with a certain emphasis before going on 'That is to say, we wandered in an unmethodical, even a whimsical fashion, guided by youthful recollections, by the prospect of a noble forest, by side-roads leading to the houses of remote friends or cousins: but when we have an enormous atlas before us I will do my best to retrace our journey. For the now, let me only observe that our path from Laredo to Segovia was far, far south of such dangerous parts as the neighbourhood of Santander or Pampeluna. To be sure, there were the signs of war in many a field, many a devastated village or shattered bridge; and it is true that there was a little trouble from English, Spanish and Portuguese stragglers on occasion, while once we saw a troop of French hussars pursued into the darkness of the upper Ebro by a numerous band of dragoons.'
    'Were the ladies distressed?'
    'Not that I observed.'
    'No, on reflection. No, to be sure,' said Blaine, who had seen Diana driving a four-in-hand along the Stockbridge road and outgalloping the Salisbury Flyer itself, to the cheers of the passengers aboard, and who knew that Clarissa had been sent to Botany Bay for blowing a man's head off with a double-barrelled fowling-piece.
    'But when we struck north into Catalonia I was among friends, protected by a network of intelligence. So having consulted dear Dr Llers, we viewed the estuary or rather the estuaries of the Ebro - such myriads of flamingoes, Joseph, with two spoonbills and a glossy ibis, all in the course of a single picnic - and so took ship from Valencia to Gibraltar, where we changed to the packet: as brilliant a voyage as could be imagined. Diana did not feel even the least uneasiness, and now we are all at the Grapes together, with Mrs Broad and the black children I brought from the South Sea, Sarah and Emily. Will you not come and sup with us? You would enjoy the little girls. They are so pleasant together - they play puss in the corner and hunt the