BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



to the explosion was a factor more potent than the 

 recognition of one another, or the yielding to the 

 usual spirit of the school, — a synchronized move- 

 ment, speed and direction which seemed beyond 

 the power of the individual to resist. 



Before I reascended I again tried to approach the 

 various masses, but the fish were recovering rapidly 

 and although still revolving, yet they avoided me 

 and I could not capture one. Eventually, all, 

 except those actually injured or torn by the impact, 

 recovered, to take up their more normal frantic 

 fleeing from danger. 



Toward the end of the dive I sat on white sand 

 and watched the surface above me. The sea 

 breeze had sprung up and it was fairly rough. 

 The view from beneath was of green, wrinkled, 

 translucent ceiling cloth, never still for a moment, 

 crinkling and uncrinkling, waving and flapping as 

 in a breeze, or rather cross breezes. It was 

 decidedly green in comparison with the ever more 

 blue distance, — turquoise green in the sunlight, 

 changing toward greenish glaucous in shadow. 

 As to the distance, I can never get away from the 

 idea of the most diluted, ethereal ultramarine, and 

 yet my mind knows that a dozen other colors are 

 somehow in it. 



As to the opacity of the ceiling, I thought it 

 absolute until I threw my head back as far as I 

 dared, and saw, almost directly overhead, facets 

 of clarity, appearing and vanishing, showing me 

 an instant's patch of sky, a momentary glimpse of 



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