The flame races back and forth along the narrow cracks, consuming the lines of pale yellow plumes. When there is no more grass to be seen, smoke continues to issue from the cracks between the rocks, as if the fire has sunk deep into the earth itself. When that smoke screen dies, the sailors burn the little spruce meadow next to the beach. The flames shoot up fifty feet in the air. Godwin has been climbing the hill with his shark-spine walking stick. He watches the flames from apart. “Is this how you celebrate your country’s birthday?” he asks. “You burn the place down?” Audubon too has been apart, drawing in the hold. He has finished the Eider Duck, the White-winged Crossbill, Fringilla lincolnii and, to show Maria, three plants of the country, all new to him and probably never before drawn. He is loath to befriend the pilot, but they share age, if nothing else; the others are so young. “The idea was to defeat the moschettoes coming from inland but I see we have only drawn more from the other side of the harbour.
