320 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



Now I was to become, not only a fish, but one 

 on the bottom — on the face of my island, so that I 

 must speak of the height, not the depth, of the 

 water overhead. It is an easy thing to do, if you 

 love to do it, and on land the reverse is equally 

 facile, for the depth of air over a given place be- 

 comes almost a trite term, when you have flown 

 over it a score of times. 



I cheated perhaps a little about my water island, 

 but I was so anxious to have it a success, that I 

 was willing to load the dice a bit. By this I mean 

 that I let myself be influenced in choosing the spot 

 by the memory of an unusually splendid haul which 

 I had made not far away a few weeks before — 

 not a very heinous thing to be sure, but not quite 

 as sporting as would have been steaming blindly 

 ahead and suddenly stopping anywhere in open 

 ocean. 



When I came to think of all the details of my 

 new endeavor, the subconscious worry and fear of 

 the whole expeditionary responsibility, which was 

 always hanging over me, became more vivid — float- 

 ing to the surface of my mind and unpityingly 

 pointing out the situation. A ship is made to 

 travel, its engines to throb, and although I was 

 in complete command, yet the shadow of my old 

 passenger subordination always lay heavy upon 

 my decisions. There seemed too, something 

 against all the traditions of the sea in thus wilfully 

 turning a perfectly good vessel into a derelict of 

 sorts, even for a time. I pictured the weed and 

 barnacles on ihe keel as sprouting forth in awful 



