52 DAHLAK 



'No, that got away too and now I can't find it, damn it. 

 I don't mind telling you I was jolly frightened. That thief 

 passed my toes like greased lightning.' 



'So the theory of shouting against sharks . . . ?' 



'When I see the good Hass he can have a piece of my 

 mind.' 



Gigi crawled into the boat. He had had enough for that 

 day. Now it was my turn to go in. 



'Shark, are you or are you not still there?' All was blue, 

 a wonderful intense blue, translucent as the skies of the 

 Renaissance painters. The coral wall fell almost vertically 

 from the shelf, one vast spiny bush, a prickly-pear of azure 

 madrepore. The round, grey, wrinkled corals that looked 

 like large human brains formed a balcony on the void, while 

 underneath extended myriads of still stranger ones shaped 

 like packs of cards, fans, stag and elk horns. Amidst their 

 numerous ramifications lived a dense population of tiny 

 fish, crabs, and minute animals that were a mixture of 

 painted worms, violet beetles and odd sorts of crickets. A 

 look into any small crack revealed a fabulous swarming life, 

 infinite in its morphological variety. 



Who could remember sharks in such a paradise? I 

 wandered about, searching, fascinated. I had read much 

 about tropical seas but the reality far surpassed my wildest 

 imaginings. I took a deep breath and sank along the coral 

 wall towards the sea bed. The deeper I got the more the 

 colours faded; gradually the reds and oranges disappeared 

 until only a pale yellow remained in a world of sapphire 

 and emerald, a world where the plants were of rock and 

 the rocks were alive. I was in a castle where all was gold, 

 and the air though translucent was tinted blue and green. 

 At the base of the great wall, thirty-six feet down where the 

 sand sea-bed descended rapidly towards the abyss, gloomy 



