Limekiller!

Limekiller nodded. At once the older man’s manner changed. “I have many, many books, as you can see. Maybe some of them would be of interest to you. Pick any one you like. Pick one at random.” So saying, he took a book from his desk and put it in Jack’s hands. It was just a book-looking book. It w as. in fact, volume II of the Everyman edition of Plutarch’s Lives. There was a wide card, of the kind on which medical notes or records are sometimes made, and so Jack Limekiller opened the book at that place.

seasons, as the gods sent them, seemed natural to him. The Greeks that inhabited Asia were very much pleased to see the great lords and governors of Persia, with all the pride, cruelty, and

“Well, now, what the Hell,” he muttered. The card slipped, he clutched. He glanced at it. He put down vol. II of the Lives and he sat back and read the notes on the card.

It is in the nature of things [they began] for men, in a new country and faced with new things, to name them after old, familiar things. Even when resemblance unlikely. Example: Mawmee-apple for tapir. (‘Tapir’ from Tupi Indian tapira, big beast.) Example: Mountain-cow not apple at all. Ex.: Sea-cow for manatee. Early British settlers not entomologists. Quest.: Whence word manatee? From Carib? Perhaps. After the British, what other people came to this corner of the world? Ans.: Black people. Calabars, Ashantee, Mantee, Mandingo. Re last two names. Related peoples. Named after totemic animal. Also, not likely? likely — named unfamiliar animals after familiar (i.e. familiar in Africa) animals. Mantee, Mandee: hippo. Refer legend

Limekiller’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my God!” he groaned. In his ear now, he heard the old, old, quavering voice of Captain Cudgel (once Cudjoe): “Mon, een Ahfrica, de mon-ah-tee hahv leg, I tell you. Een Ahfrica eet be ah poerful beast, come up on de lond, I tell you. de w’ol’ people, dey tell me so, fah true.. ”

He heard the old voice, repeating the old words, no longer even half-understood: but, in some measure, at least half-true.

Refer legend of were-animals, universal. Were-wolf, were tiger, were-shark, were-dolphin. Quest.: Were-manatee?

“Mon-ah-tee ees hahlfah mon. hahv teats like a womahn. Dere ees wahn mon, mehk mellow weet mon-ah-tee, hahv pickney by mon-ah-tee.. ”

And he heard another voice saying, not only once, saying, “Mon, eef you tie ah rottlesnake doewnfah me, I veel freeg eet.

He thought of the wretched captives in the Spanish slaveship, set free to fend for themselves in a bush by far wilder than the one left behind. Few, to begin with, fewer as time went on; marrying and intermarrying, no new blood, no new thoughts. And, finally, the one road in to them, destroyed. Left alone. Left quite alone. Or. almost.

He shuddered.

How desperate for refuge must Blaine have been, to have sought to hide himself anywhere near Cape Mandee -

And what miserable happenstance had brought he himself, Jack Limekiller, to improvise on that old song that dreadful night? — And what had he called up — out of the darkness. out of the bush. out of the mindless present which was the past and future and the timeless tropical forever?.

There was something pressing gently against his finger, something on the other side of the card. He turned it over. A clipping from a magazine had been roughly pasted there.

Valentry has pointed out that, despite a seeming resemblance to such aquatic mammals as seals and walrus, the manatee is actually more closely related anatomically to the elephant.

. out of the bush. out of the darkness. out of the mindless present which was also the past and the timeless tropical forever.

“They are like elephants. They never forget. ”

“Ukh,” he said, through clenched teeth. “My God. Uff. Jesus..”

The card was suddenly, swiftly, snatched from his hands. He looked up, still in a state of shock, to see Doctor Rafael tearing it into pieces.

“Dona Sana!”

A moment. Then the housekeeper, old, all in white. “Doctor?”

“Burn this.”