118 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



bronze of the sunset behind me. Now and then it 

 seemed ahnost as if they answered with a faint 

 tinge of their own. I had spent much of the day 

 in a diving hehnet, clambering far down about the 

 lower reaches of these same cliffs, — in a world 

 where the word dry is without meaning and where 

 the shadows of sharks instead of frigatebirds fol- 

 low as they pass over my head. Now, for a while, 

 the birds, even the garrulous gulls, were silent, and 

 the quiet of my ears lent more power to my eyes 

 which scanned the aged cliffs. So silent, so dead, 

 so hard, so immutable were they, that no continent 

 seemed more permanent than this tiny islet in mid- 

 sea. Surely, when the world first cleared its face, 

 these eternal iron cinders were here — cold, motion- 

 less, black as night. 



There was still a tinge of rich color in the west 

 when I went below, to eat and work, and talk of 

 things so unimportant to stars. It was long past 

 midnight when the booming voice of the Second 

 Mate broke into my dreamless sleep, and brought 

 me on the instant to my feet, clear-thinking and 

 listening, — the heritage of a myriad nights in 

 jungles and deserts. He beckoned me to the 

 bridge and pointed toward the entrance of the bay. 

 Something was there which should not have been. 

 If at this hour, on the equator, a sunset afterglow 

 still lingered, then indeed had the stars turned back- 

 ward in their courses. A sudden idea came to me : 

 "A ship on fire?" The mate shook his head, it was 

 too big a glow for that, although only a splash of 

 rose low down. 



