376 I N A G U A 



times comes on dry land in September before the leaves are 

 gone. 



A feeling of loneliness swept briefly over me. I felt as though 

 I were the only person in the world, as indeed I was, for al- 

 though I knew that only seventy feet away the boatman was 

 steadily stroking the pump that kept me alive, he might well 

 have been on Mars, so separated were we by the thin film of 

 the top of the ocean. And I knew that I was treading a spot 

 where no man had ever trod before, that my eyes would be 

 the first to see this abyssal underwater cliff that dropped away 

 for nearly 7000 feet before it reached the floor of the ocean. 

 Perhaps it was the deathly stillness that gave the feeling, for 

 no sound came to my ears but the faint hiss of the air that came 

 down the hose. 



Nervously I tightened my grip on the Hfe line and pulled on 

 it to make certain that it was securely fastened. It was. I could 

 feel the surge of the boat as it bobbed up and down on the 

 waves. Turning on my course T looked again for the boat. It 

 was quite out of sight. Completing my rotation I searched care- 

 fully in all directions. The boatman had warned that the cliff 

 edge was the rendezvous of huge sharks and barracuda and that 

 I should be cautious. As I had done on the reef, I scoffed at him; 

 though after my experience there, and now that I was by my- 

 self and lost in an azure immensity, I was not so sure. 



The edge came sooner than I expected. Suddenly I was peer- 

 ing down into a great blue void. The soil had disappeared at 

 my feet and the bottom had become soft and yielding. For an 

 awful second I could see the sand drifting, sliding downwards, 

 and frantically I seized the life line and held it tight. I knew 

 well enough that I would not drift ten feet before I would be 

 checked by both hose and line, but the space below looked so 

 utterly vacant that I could not help reacting as I did. 



Trembling slightly, I sat down on the soft bank and peered 



