CHAPTER XVIII 



The Edge of the Edge of the World 



Helmeted and visored like some knight of old, I stood mo- 

 tionless at the bottom of the sea on the next but last day I was 

 to spend on Inagua and contemplated the great mound of yel- 

 low rock where I was poised forty feet beneath the surface. 

 Slowly I crouched, stooped to nearly a sitting position, and 

 then sprang into space. Up I soared, ^vt feet, ten, fifteen, on 

 up to twenty, slowly drifted to a stop and then coasted down 

 again. I landed on a smooth stretch of sand, bounced a tiny 

 bit and, like an actor in a slow motion picture, came to rest. 

 Breathing a sigh of relief I turned and looked at the jagged 

 rocks I had just cleared with my amazing leap. 



I was glad I had not misjudged the distance, as an error 

 would have resulted in badly scarred limbs. Strange, I thought 

 to myself, the chances a man will take for the sake of curiosity. 

 There was no other excuse I could think of for this last-minute 

 escapade. I thought I had had enough of diving but one thing 

 remained. For weeks I had stood on shore and looked at the 

 place beyond the settlement where the color of the ocean 

 changed abruptly from light green to dark blue, marking a 

 sheer drop of 1200 fathoms, a terrifying plunge to the utter- 

 most depths. Finally I could resist the temptation no longer; I 

 had to see what the edge of that submarine chff was like. 



With the aid of a native boatman I loaded my diving helmet 

 into the boat and anchored just a few feet on the land side of 

 the brink. I was perhaps a quarter of a mile out from shore. 

 The bottom looked a long distance away, and it was with a 



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