WHEN NIGHT COMES TO WATER 



light would begin to exercise its transcendant 

 power. 



The little zone of radiance of which I was the 

 huddled hub became a nebula in space; the 

 schooner was but an idea, I, merely an invisible 

 onlooker. In the pale luminescent green ether 

 surrounding the magic circle lay all the possibilities 

 which ever cluster just beyond our sensory per- 

 ceptions : I was one great eye. 



The tide was flowing gently seaward. I could 

 count ten large, parachute-like jellies — Aurelias 

 they were — vibrating heedlessly here and there, 

 all drifting slowly along on the current magic of 

 the invisible moon. This aimlessness, this passive 

 indirectness marked them as Plankton, nXavuros 

 or Wanderers, as the Greeks have it, in sharp 

 distinction to Nekton — the fishes who have a 

 will of their own, a directional intention which 

 can take them across or against tides and cur- 

 rents. 



A glance around showed that the color of the 

 water near the light had changed; instesad of pale 

 transparent emerald it had cooled to moonstone 

 greyness. The heart of the nebula which had 

 been without form and void was beginning to 

 quicken into a nucleus. The visual magnetism 

 had commenced its sorcery, and where only a drift- 

 ing jelly or a casual fish roamed, was now the core 

 of a veritable cosmos. What the sun and the 

 moon could not achieve in surface life, my little 

 light was doing. 



81 



