SEA-WRACK «7 



The great unlovely bow rose and reached for- 

 ward and settled until, as I lay face downward, 

 our speed seemed increased many fold. And I 

 wondered if the set wooden expression which 

 always marked the figurehead ladies and gods 

 had not its origin in the hypnotic joy of forever 

 watching the molten cobalt crash into alabaster, 

 this to emerald, then to merge again into the 

 blue which is a hue bom of depth and space 

 and not of pigment. And now I forgot the 

 plunging bow beneath and the schools of toy 

 biplanes, the strange httle grasshopper-like fidi 

 which burst from the ultramarine, unstained, 

 full-finned and banked sharply outward for tl^ir 

 brief span of flight. I looked up and saw pale- 

 green shallows, a thread of silver surf and the 

 rounded mountains of a tropical island. And I 

 frowned with impatience — sanetfaing that more 

 reUable figureheads never did — ^for the island, 

 teeming with interest, with exciting birds, and 

 fascinating people, had beoi spoiled for me. 

 Force of circumstance had shuffled me inex- 

 tricably into a pack (I use tiie smile jdvisedly) 

 of insufferable tourists. Effeminate men, dbild- 

 ish wcHnen and spoiied chiUrai diluted or ^siiioll^ 

 eclipsed eveiy possilife scene. The obyioas 



