ALMOST ISLAND 



most pure culture of worry, fear, danger, warning, 

 despair. None of us wish to be " spineless jellyfish " 

 but here was I, held fascinated by the marvel of 

 their form and movement, and wishing for us a little 

 of the calm and assurance of their lives. 



Half a dozen more rungs brought the bottom 

 into clear view, and now I slid slowly down until 

 I grasped the lowermost, swung my feet and legs 

 free in mid-water, and — Dangled. There had been 

 a very light breeze in the upper world when I left 

 and I found that I was hardly moving, drifting very 

 slowly seaward. Within my forty or fifty feet hori- 

 zon all was one tumult of tortured rock, — caves, 

 gullies, slender arms of stone reaching out toward 

 me, deep unsounded wells, galleries winding in and 

 out — everything except a bit of flatness. I saw 

 a great round mass slowly approaching and soon I 

 was able to stand upright on a mighty brain coral. 

 I laughed a hollow, coppery laugh all to myself in 

 my helmet at the thought of my resemblance to 

 Gulliver, only here I was perched upon the cranium 

 of a giant who must have been a genius, with an 

 appalling amount of convolutions showing clearly 

 through his skull. I was gently tipped off during 

 my momentary amusement and again I dangled. 



The next projection was ^n angled bit of stone 

 overgrown with seaweeds and plumes. While in 

 temporary possession I danced vigorously upon it, 

 kicked and stamped and scraped, and my reward 

 for the next few minutes after I was plucked from 

 it was a school of fifty golden wrasse dashing about 



53 



