196 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



transparent water the hardest and most durable 

 of walls, and encase themselves in shells of lime, 

 of marvellous architecture and splendor of pattern 

 and pigment. 



In the course of past time, fishes of the sea 

 covered themselves with scales of shining silver 

 and developed four important fins — prophecies of 

 wonderful legs and arms and feet and hands, if 

 one could only have known. But in those times 

 the Great Father of Waters was in no fear about 

 the desertion of his children. Fishes leaped from 

 the waves and even learned to skim through the 

 air on outstretched fins. But they always plopped 

 back exhausted. And when other creatures in- 

 sisted on clambering out on mud-banks and flip- 

 ping themselves along, the great breakers merely 

 chased them and good-naturedly rolled and tum- 

 bled them back again into the green frothy water. 

 And the ocean in those days swept round and 

 partly over the half dried land, and the sound of 

 the storm waves vibrated uselessly around the 

 headlands and through the valleys, for there were 

 no ears to hear. 



By the time the first little monkey climbed down 

 a swaying vine for his evening's drink, the domin- 

 ion of the sea had become lost in the past. The 

 earth was galloped over and burrowed into by 

 myriads of beings ; trees were perched on and bored 

 through; the air hummed and whistled with wings 

 and webs and leaping forms. So completely a 

 thing of the past had the sea life become that 

 many creatures had gone back to it as to quite a 



