22 DAHLAK 



Other, almost elbow to elbow. We had had a meeting the 

 previous evening to hammer out a plan of campaign and we 

 had agreed that we should on no account lose sight of each 

 other in the water; each must keep an eye on the others and 

 each in turn would be the group captain; he was to be 

 followed even at the cost of overlooking or leaving unstudied 

 things of major interest. We struck out. We had to cover 

 fifty yards across the shelf before reaching the edge that fell 

 rapidly into the dark depths. 



I looked around and felt a shadow of uneasiness creeping 

 over me. I could see nothing but the intense yellow; it was 

 as if an unmoving, endless rain was suspended around me. 

 It was plankton, but at that moment I could take no interest 

 in it. I'd have given the world to be able to see a yard or two 

 more, to have seen the sea floor which the sixth sense we 

 *old undervvatermen' have, told me was falling away beneath 

 me. It must be about nine feet now; those fins were here 

 before. Soon I could bear it no longer and dived down to the 

 bottom. It was clearer there, clear enough to see the land- 

 scape below me ... a stretch of ochre-coloured sand dotted 

 with sea cucumbers, small shells, holathurians and tottering 

 hermit crabs, bulging here and there with small madreporic 

 blocks : the corals. I touched them, looked under them, and 

 realized how many times I had seen them, in museums . . . 

 and now . . . but they were not the same, not white but 

 brownish, knotted with strange living things. On emerging I 

 noticed that my companions were twenty yards further on, 

 all together. The strange panic returned. *Here I am,' I 

 pondered confusedly while returning under, 'all alone in the 

 Red Sea in the very spot where those fins were before.' I 

 hurriedly swam further out but, unable to find the bottom, 

 sank still further and at fifteen feet found myself suddenly in 

 the middle of the coral barrier. It was the shelf. 



