CHAPTER I 



MOUNT BEEMUDA 



IT was half -past four in the afternoon of the Sec- 

 ond Day of Creation, and in a drowned world I 

 was wet and cold and hungry and idle and bored. 

 Then things began to happen inside my mind and 

 at four forty-five I was still wet, but neither cold 

 nor hungry nor idle, and hence not bored. 



At the very tip of the long, southward-pointing 

 finger of Nonsuch is a small cliff jutting out to sea 

 between two little gorges, and on the uttermost 

 point I was perched in a deluge of rain, hugging 

 my knees and wishing for the sun. Only the day 

 before I had been desirous of knowing something 

 of the beginning of Nonsuch and of Bermuda, and 

 now, suddenly, I realized that my wish had been 

 answered, and instead of squatting, disgruntled 

 and bored, I focused all my imagination on mak- 

 ing the most of this cosmic opportunity. There 

 must have been a moon in existence somewhere in 

 the firmament beyond all this dampness, for the 

 tide was high, although the horizontal water was 

 quite hidden by the vertical downpour. 



The isolation of my perch was such that not a 

 particle of land — dry or otherwise — was visible. 

 I would not have been surprised if a school of active 



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