THE FISHMEN 



along the reefs. Butterfly-fish move among the sponges 

 and many-coloured sea-anemones: some of the sea- 

 anemones, in thirty or forty feet of water, being as much 

 as two feet across. 



Numbers of colourful fish rest on branches and sprays 

 of coral like birds in trees. Crustaceans of all kinds hide 

 among the coral bases, like little land creatures among 

 tree roots. 



The wrecks are encrusted with coral growths. Sponges, 

 oysters and other creatures cover the ship's bridges and 

 wheelhouses and decks. Inside the more modern ones 

 electric wires hang in festoons. Bottles, full and empty, 

 swirl about with the motions of the sea or ride high under 

 the encrusted ceilings. Everywhere chaos and decay are 

 mercifully covered by the beauty of corals and under- 

 water plants. In these sunken ships, costly chronometers, 

 sextants, binoculars and other instruments, broken, cor- 

 roded and ruined, lie about in the debris as if they were 

 as valueless as the rotten pieces of wood or cordage upon 

 which they rest. 



Silent for so long, the waters within the wrecks may 

 suddenly be alive with strange sounds. Quiescent for so 

 long, save for the rippling movements of sea animals, the 

 waters may suddenly be disturbed by violent con- 

 cussions. 



Down into the dark hold, into the submerged com- 

 panion-ways, and through into the water-filled cabins, 

 come these strange shapes — men with strange lumps on 

 their backs and queer appendages hanging from their 

 jaws. As they loom and recede, or set the submerged 

 walls of the sunken ship shuddering with their knockings 

 and scrapings, hosts of sea creatures swim to and fro in 

 panic, or make for the outer sea. 



After untold centuries the fishmen are entering the 

 deeps — claiming the sea as their own. 



i8i 



