36 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



Yet no matter to what height I was borne, the dis- 

 tant horizon always held another, still more lofty 

 ridge. 



These great swells fittingly suited the dramatic 

 location — half-way between America and Africa, 

 actually balanced between Florida and the Sahara. 

 The buoyancy was unbelievable and the difference 

 between swimming in a few feet of salt water and 

 here where there were two or three miles of liquid 

 beneath me, seemed very noticeable. 



I dived and entered an ultramarine world, with 

 sprigs of amber sargassum weed floating near the 

 ceiling of that world. Tiny fish darted past, and 

 once, even with the dullness of my aquatic vision, 

 I saw a small school vanish from view — a group of 

 timid flyingfish which took to wing and entered 

 the air at sight of my strange appearance. I dived 

 a second time and sank as low as my stored-up 

 breath permitted, and then before I turned and 

 kicked upward, took one long look beneath and 

 tried to imagine that unimaginable world of life 

 down, down in the ever blackening, ever greater 

 pressured depths. No ship or companion was vis- 

 ible and my sense of devastating isolation, of cos- 

 mic awe can never again occur with equal force in 

 this life, unless, some day I am able to sense Tom- 

 linson's experience when, 



"A Spirit gripped him by the hair 

 and carried him far away. 

 Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford 

 the roar of the Milky Way." 



