82 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



I walked or half-walked, half-floated, toward the 

 cliffs. The rocks were almost bare in this bay, 

 like those between tides, and the multitudes of 

 lesser aquatic creatures were concealed beneath 

 them. The water was quiet, and between surges 

 was often perfectly clear, so that I could see plainly 

 the cliffs rising high in air above that narrow 

 straight line which marked the division between 

 the two kingdoms. I went as far as my hose tether 

 would permit and reached a boulder on which, the 

 day before, at low tide, I had sat comfortably in 

 the clear, cool air of the upper world. 



Turning back, I saw that I had become a Pied 

 Piper of sorts, leading a host of fish which fol- 

 lowed in my train. The sun was out now in full 

 strength and no fish, however strange and un- 

 known to me, could hold my eyes from the marvel 

 of distance. As I walked toward the cliffs I had 

 also worked a little toward the east and the view 

 I had, as I turned, was of another slope than that 

 over which I had come. The bottom thus far 

 was not wholly unlike the cliff above the 

 water, but before me now the slope fell away in 

 a manner which was beyond all experience — a 

 breath-stopping fall, down which one could not 

 topple headlong, but only roll and slide slowly, to 

 be overcome, not by swift speed of descent or 

 smashing blow, but by a far more terrible slow in- 

 crease of pressure of the invisible medium, whose 

 very surface film is death to us. To detect a faint, 

 colorless shape now and then, through the azure 

 curtain, and never to know whether it was rock or 



