NIGHT BENEATH THE SEA 367 



rail and donned the helmet, hoping they would not be fol- 

 lowed by another school, for to be engulfed in several hun- 

 dred thousand jellies at night seemed too strange an experience 

 to be contemplated with the equanimity which a similar event 

 would occasion in the full light of day. Besides, although the 

 stings of thimble- jellies are reported to be very mild to the 

 human skin, I did not feel like experimenting with them in the 

 dark. 



A coral reef during the day is unbelievable. At night and 

 lighted by a tropical moon it is so utterly fantastic that there 

 are no superlatives in the English language nor similes with 

 which to make an apt comparison. Imagine a world in which 

 all color is gone, where shadows assume the shapes of twisted 

 giants, where nothing is still for a moment, where the sky is 

 solid burnished platinum, where phantom figures, clad in pale 

 somber gray, hover restlessly in mid-air in the shelter of nar- 

 row caves dripping with stalactites, which do not hang mo- 

 tionless but sway eerily to and fro. Imagine the atmosphere 

 filled with a pale soft glow, an unearthly sheen that has no 

 visible substance but which increases and dims as shafts of 

 pearl gray light run like ghosts from surface to bottom, creat- 

 ing halos of visibility as they reach the sandy soil. 



This was the scene that met my eyes when I sHd slowly 

 down the rope and came to rest over my usual drowned valley. 

 Catching a loop in the line and placing the arch of my foot in 

 it, I relaxed and permitted myself to be swayed slowly back 

 and forth. The beautiful blues, reds, lavenders and golds were 

 vanished as utterly as if they had never existed. The rays of 

 the moon filtering down through the clear water cast long 

 wavering shadows into the ravine which seemed more gloomy 

 and mysterious than ever. The great stone trees stood like a 

 row of silvery ghosts. Their jagged fingers, each outlined with 

 a white line of glowing light, reached pleading hands up to the 



