SHADOWS 



' The wish — that ages have not yet subdued — 

 In man to have no master save his mood." 



Byron. 



Before the coming of the obscuring grey of these 

 wet-season days, when the tranquil sea absorbed the 

 lustrous blue of the sk}^ I discovered myself day- 

 dreaming for a blissful moment or two ere the crude 

 anchor of the flattie slipped slowly to the mud twelve 

 feet below. The rough iron and rusty chain cast 

 curious crinkled shadows, and presently, as the iron 

 sank into the slate-coloured mud and the chain tightened, 

 the shadow was single but infirm. Light and the magic 

 of the sea, which, though it takes its ease, is forbidden 

 absolute rest, transformed it until imagination created 

 similitude to a serpent in its natural element. Its half- 

 concealed, formless head was verified by a flake of rust 

 just where a watchful eye might have been, and the 

 sun played upon it. 



So here at last was the sea-serpent with alert eye and 

 without end. It was all so realistic and endowed with 

 such benignity and such gentleness of motion that I 

 gazed at it with the gladness of a discoverer. In response 

 to a slight motion of the hand, the sea-serpent wriggled 

 as though in haste ; but wriggle as it might, the end never 

 came. 



The boat drifted back. The serpent became seriously 



70 



