objects which make up the more colorful part of 

 the living mantle that drapes the dripping hull. 



Then darkness finally comes, bringing in its 

 train a most striking phenomenon. The tide has 

 turned. A heavy mist arises. Out of the sable void 

 the waters of the incoming current flow silently, 

 swiftly, luminously: a ghostly stream, a river of 

 sulphurous light ! For a space I sit in my anchored 

 boat, transfixed by the eerie splendor of the night. 

 I seem to be sailing over a milky sea glowing with 

 soft throbbing flames of phantom-fire. Pale patches 

 of glaucous light swirl past, losing themselves in 

 eddies of vaporous blue. Now some scintillant 

 point of purple incandescence pulsates, suddenly 

 flares, then as suddenly dies out. Diffused delicate 

 flashes of a seemingly unearthly hue appear to 

 pervade the water on every side; and as they glide 

 by, mysteriously, vaguely, looking unreal, I am 

 lifted from the world and hurtled through space 

 . . . The planets, the stars, even those mighty 

 universes of cosmic reaches swim before my spell- 

 bound eyes. No longer am I a human, a very mortal 

 being. I am non-existent. I am become as nothing 

 — without form and without substance. Time and 



space for me are ciphers. I am drifting 



[357] 



