WITH HELMET AND HOSE 95 



emotion over, whatever it was, they all came to 

 rest still high up in mid-water. It occurred to me 

 that in comparison, our own world is practically- 

 one of two planes, while this is really the one of 

 three. It is fair to compare fish only with birds, 

 and even birds need two perching props, and do 

 not dare to develop wings or feather fins beneath 

 the body, for, sooner or later, they must ahght, 

 while a fish can live, eat and sleep poised in mid- 

 water. 



I turned my attention from the fish to the scene 

 behind me and the absurdity of my appraisement 

 from the water-glass became apparent. I was 

 standing a few yards away from a boulder as big 

 as a cottage, and my heart gave a leap as I saw a 

 curved flight of steps — giant steps like those up 

 which I had once climbed Cheops. They began 

 on my side at the doorless entrance of the sinister 

 cottage, slowly encircled it and vanished behind it 

 in a soul-stirring abyss of blueness, which, from 

 a delicate shade near at hand, blued more and 

 more clearly into infinite depth and space. I be- 

 lieve that Sime would have loved this scene, and 

 Dunsany would have deemed it not unfitting for 

 the habitation of Gnoles. Toten Insel treasured no 

 more mystery in its perspective than did this. As I 

 watched, a bit of greenish black coral which pro- 

 jected eave-like, began to move and crawl slowly 

 downward, and with it went dangling things which 

 I had taken for strands of dead seaweed, but which 

 on this edifice might well have been awful stalac- 

 tites or icicles of sorts. The octopus climbed down, 



