Deny the Slake

Illustrated by GAUGHAN
Those couplets held
(unless they lied)
The reason why
a world had died!
The skipper looked at what Ernest Hotaling had scribbled on the slip of paper.
The color of my true love's cheek
Will turn to gray within a week.
The skipper read it and exploded. What kind of nonsense is this?
Of course it wouldn't rhyme in a literal translation, Ernest said mildly. But that's the sense of it.
Doggerel! the skipper exclaimed. Is this the message of the ages? Is this the secret of the lost civilization?
There are others, too, Ernest said. He was the psychologist-linguist of the crew. You've got to expect them to be obscure at first. They didn't purposely leave any message for us.