NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 365 



Looking again at the ebony surface, I shuddered slightly at 

 the memory of the feel of the swarming worms, and decided I 

 had enough for one night. I w^ould have given much for the 

 strong curved sides of my steel cylinder with its big plate glass 

 window. With its aid I could have watched the drama of the 

 worms to its conclusion. But it was a thousand and a half miles 

 away, drawn up high and dry on a Chesapeake Beach. So with 

 the aid of my pump operator, I gathered in the anchor and 

 rowed to shore where I dropped into bed and fell into a deep 

 slumber. Here I lay without moving until the rays of sunlight 

 steaHng through the open window announced the coming of 

 full daylight. 



I did not go diving at night again until almost three weeks 

 later. The moon, at first wan and thin, had nightly chmbed into 

 the sky, expanding steadily, until it was round and gleaming. 

 Its rays lighted the dry salinas and turned the sloping shell- 

 studded beaches into pale white ribbons that stretched away 

 into the indefinite darkness. The surface of the reef, moaning 

 with the might of the curling breakers, was plainly visible and 

 even the shallow waters of the lagoons were sufficiently il- 

 luminated to show the differences between the depths and the 

 shallows and the locations where the patches of green turtle 

 grass grew. Only the ocean beyond the reef was completely 

 black; down in the great depths the sand and rocks were too 

 far away to reflect the moonlight. But even its somberness was 

 relieved by the sparkle of moonbeams on the wave facets and 

 by the momentary whiteness of hurthng whitecaps. 



We anchored a few yards from the face of the reef, and 

 pitching and tossing waited until the slack of the anchor rope 

 was taken up by the drift. A flying-fish, disturbed in its surface 

 floating, or perhaps alarmed by the cable, suddenly whizzed 

 out of the night, skimmed across the hollow of a wave valley, 

 was silhouetted against the sphere of the moon, and with an 



