I Earn Experience 1 7 



after what seemed a day, but could only have been a 

 few minutes, we stopped our descent and began to 

 move horizontally. 



At first I was dreadfully distressed. I felt as if I 

 was being squeezed flat, I wanted to breathe, but I 

 found that my nostril was as securely sealed as if it 

 was never to be opened again, certainly I could not 

 open it. My lower jaw hung down, leaving my mouth 

 wide open, and presently a delicious quivering morsel 

 went gliding down my throat, giving me a most ex- 

 quisite feeling of satisfaction. The gloom which had so 

 troubled me at first gave way to a tender, greenish light 

 shed abroad by myriads of shining things that glowed 

 and faded as they floated about apparently without any 

 will of their own. The cold, too, which at first had felt 

 unbearable, chilling my blood and making it feel as if 

 it was thickening so much that it could not flow, 

 became less unpleasant. And presently, tiny as I was, 

 I realised that this was my proper realm, that here 

 our people were supreme, and that of all the myriads 

 of diverse creatures in the sea we were the undoubted 

 heads and leaders. All other sea-citizens but ourselves 

 preyed upon and were preyed upon by other denizens of 

 the deep, we alone took toll where we would, ourselves 

 secure from all assault by any of the sea-folk. It was a 

 high and elevating thought to feel oneself a lineal 

 descendant of such a mighty and ancient line of ocean 

 royalty. 



All around me glided in utter silence amid the 

 varying gleams, like vast shadows, the members of 

 the school. Occasionally in hasteless, dignified fashion 

 one would rise perpendicularly with some palely 

 glowing mass between his jaws, and reversing his 

 position, let the great saw of his lower mandible 

 divide whatever it was he held into sizeable fragments 



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