NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 357 



reached the other side I made a sudden grab for its body. I was 

 too slow, however, for it quickly folded up its walking rays 

 and put the fins to their normal use— swimming. Settling again 

 just beyond reach, it dropped airily to the sand and stood there 

 eyeing me. 



Rising to my feet again I plodded over to the great shadowy 

 mounds of boulders that marked the lower ramparts of the 

 island. The moss covered crags towered high into the air- 

 water rather— and the algaes and sea fans were dipping and 

 swaying just as they had done in the daytime. But it was not 

 the same world. There was a noticeable difference. At first I 

 credited it to the darkness and the long shadows cast by the 

 flash. These, of course, changed its appearance considerably, 

 altering an already strange landscape into another of still more 

 weird proportions. The crags which during the day might well 

 have fitted into a valley on Mars, at night were almost lunar in 

 their aspect. Everything was delineated in sharp, vividly con- 

 trasted outlines. Brilliantly scarlet gorgonians, that normally 

 melted inconspicuously into the general melee of color, merg- 

 ing with yellows, blues and greens, now stood out in all their 

 crimson glory against a background of jet black. There is no. 

 richer combination in the world than scarlet and black. The 

 old Chinese craftsmen long ago realized this and have made 

 ample use of it in their incomparable lacquers. The lacy fronds 

 of the algaes' tendrils looked even more fragile now that they 

 were silhouetted alone; they appeared to be doing some sort 

 of filmy dance, forever flinging their graceful arms upward 

 in supplication and bowing them to earth again. The dark en- 

 trances to a hundred underwater caverns gaped open-mouthed 

 between long curving ovals of brilliant yellow. Stony rain- 

 bows fringed with the pale white stems of hydroids and en- 

 crusted with purple and lavender finger sponges arched away 

 into the somber distance. Long rows of yellow sea fans run- 



