‘We’re careful. We covered them up. Not like you.’ Bond gestured towards the rocks. ‘You ought to take more trouble. Did you use a sail? Right up to the reef?’
‘Of course. Why not? I always do.’
‘Then they’ll know you’re here. They’ve got radar.’
‘They’ve never caught me yet.’ The girl took her hand away from her knife. She reached up and stripped off the diving mask and stood swinging it. She seemed to think she had the measure of Bond. She said, with some of the sharpness gone from her voice, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Bond. James Bond. What’s yours?’
She reflected. ‘Rider.’
‘What Rider?’
‘Honeychile.’
Bond smiled.
‘What’s so funny about it?’
‘Nothing. Honeychile Rider. It’s a pretty name.’
She unbent. ‘People call me “Honey”. ’
‘Well, I’m glad to meet you.’
The prosaic phrase seemed to remind her of her nakedness. She blushed. She said uncertainly, ‘I must get dressed.’ She looked down at the scattered shells around her feet. She obviously wanted to pick them up. Perhaps she realized that the movement might be still more revealing than her present pose. She said sharply, ‘You’re not to touch those while I’m gone.’
Bond smiled at the childish challenge. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after them.’
The girl looked at him doubtfully and then turned and walked stiff-legged over to the rocks and disappeared behind them.
Bond walked the few steps down the beach and bent and picked up one of the shells. It was alive and the two halves were shut tight. It appeared to be some kind of a cockle, rather deeply ribbed and coloured a mauve-pink. Along both edges of the hinge, thin horns stood out, about half a dozen to each side. It didn’t seem to Bond a very distinguished shell. He replaced it carefully with the others.
He stood looking down at the shells and wondering. Was she really collecting them? It certainly looked like it. But what a risk to take to get them – the voyage over alone in the canoe and then back again. And she seemed to realize that this was a dangerous place. ‘They’ve never caught me yet.’ What an extraordinary girl. Bond’s heart warmed and his senses stirred as he thought of her. Already, as he had found so often when people had deformities, he had almost forgotten her broken nose. It had somehow slipped away behind his memory of her eyes and her mouth and her amazingly beautiful body. Her imperious attitude and her quality of attack were exciting. The way she had reached for her knife to defend herself! She was like an animal whose cubs are threatened. Where did she live? Who were her parents? There was something uncared for about her – a dog that nobody wants to pet. Who was she?
Bond heard her footsteps riffling the sand. He turned to look at her. She was dressed almost in rags – a faded brown shirt with torn sleeves and a knee-length patched brown cotton skirt held in place by the leather belt with the knife. She had a canvas knapsack slung over one shoulder. She looked like a principal girl dressed as Man Friday.
She came up with him and at once went down on one knee and began picking up the live shells and stowing them in the knapsack.
Bond said, ‘Are those rare?’
She sat back on her haunches and looked up at him. She surveyed his face. Apparently she was satisfied. ‘You promise you won’t tell anybody? Swear?’
‘I promise,’ said Bond.
‘Well then, yes, they are rare. Very. You can get five dollars for a perfect specimen. In Miami. That’s where I deal with. They’re called Venus elegans – The Elegant Venus.’ Her eyes sparkled up at him with excitement. ‘This morning I found what I wanted. The bed where they live,’ she waved towards the sea. ‘You wouldn’t find it though,’ she added with sudden carefulness. ‘It’s very deep and hidden away. I doubt if you could dive that deep. And anyway,’ she looked happy, ‘I’m going to clear the whole bed today. You’d only get the imperfect ones if you came back here.’
Bond laughed. ‘I promise I won’t steal any. I really don’t know anything about shells. Cross my heart.’
She stood up, her work completed. ‘What about these birds of yours? What sort are they? Are they valuable too? I won’t tell either if you tell me. I only collect shells.’
‘They’re called roseate spoonbills,’ said Bond. ‘Sort of pink stork with a flat beak. Ever seen any?’
‘Oh, those,’ she said scornfully. ‘There used to be thousands of them here. But you won’t find many now. They scared them all away.’ She sat down on the sand and put her arms round her knees, proud of her superior knowledge and now certain that she had nothing to fear from this man.
Bond sat down a yard away. He stretched out and turned towards her, resting on his elbow. He wanted to preserve the picnic atmosphere and try to find out more about this queer, beautiful girl. He said, easily, ‘Oh, really. What happened? Who did it?’
She shrugged impatiently. ‘The people here did it. I don’t know who they are. There’s a Chinaman. He doesn’t like birds or something. He’s got a dragon. He sent the dragon after the birds and scared them away. The dragon burned up their nesting places. There used to be two men who lived with the birds and looked after them. They got scared away too, or killed or something.’
It all seemed quite natural to her. She gave the facts indifferently, staring out to sea.
Bond said, ‘This dragon. What kind is he? Have you ever seen him?’
‘Yes, I’ve seen him.’ She screwed up her eyes and made a wry face as if she was swallowing bitter medicine. She looked earnestly at Bond to make him share her feelings. ‘I’ve been coming here for about a year, looking for shells and exploring. I only found these,’ she waved at the beach, ‘about a month ago. On my last trip. But I’ve found plenty of other good ones. Just before Christmas I thought I’d explore the river. I went up it to the top, where the birdmen had their camp. It was all broken up. It was getting late and I decided to spend the night there. In the middle of the night I woke up. The dragon was coming by only a few chains away from me. It had two great glaring eyes and a long snout. It had sort of short wings and a pointed tail. It was all black and gold.’ She frowned at the expression on Bond’s face. ‘There was a full moon. I could see it quite clearly. It went by me. It was making a sort of roaring noise. It went over the marsh and came to some thick mangrove and it simply climbed over the bushes and went on. A whole flock of birds got up in front of it and suddenly a lot of fire came out of its mouth and it burned a lot of them up and all the trees they’d been roosting in. It was horrible. The most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.’
The girl leant sideways and peered at Bond’s face. She sat up straight again and stared obstinately out to sea. ‘I can see you don’t believe me,’ she said in a furious, tense voice. ‘You’re one of these city people. You don’t believe anything. Ugh,’ she shuddered with dislike of him.
Bond said reasonably, ‘Honey, there just aren’t such things as dragons in the world. You saw something that looked very like a dragon. I’m just wondering what it was.’
‘How do you know there aren’t such things as dragons?’ Now he had made her really angry. ‘Nobody lives on this end of the island. One could easily have survived here. Anyway, what do you think you know about animals and things? I’ve lived with snakes and things since I was a child. Alone. Have you ever seen a praying mantis eat her husband after they’ve made love? Have you ever seen the mongoose dance? Or an octopus dance? How long is a humming bird’s tongue? Have you ever had a pet snake that wore a bell round its neck and rang it to wake you? Have you seen a scorpion get sunstroke and kill itself with its own