THE OPAL SEA 



lifted, island-like, above an unknown waste; 

 and man was no more than a shipwrecked sailor 

 clinging to a scrap of rock. 



When more familiar growoi and many sails 

 sank and rose along the horizon rim, the stories 

 brought up from below the verge but added to 

 its terrors. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules 

 there was a great wilderness of water 



Tales of the 

 sea. 



" Which birds travel not within a year, 

 So vast it is and fearful." 



The phan- 

 tom ship. 



Nothing but water — water that could not be 

 drunk by man or beast. Far to the south 

 under a burning tropic sun, great calms spread 

 over a glas-sy sea and there, caught in the 

 silent web of heat, ships rolled listlessly upon 

 the lazy swell and starving crews hauled and 

 heaved and set sails that never filled, never 

 caught a breath of air. No breeze to stir, no 

 drop of rain to save — naught but the hot air to 

 wither and the blazing sunlight to bleach. Be- 

 yond the region of calms, from an unknown sea 

 still farther to the south — so the tale ran — 

 came the phantom ship that always sailed on 

 the edge of a storm and was an omen of evil to 

 come. It never came into port, it was only an 

 uneasy ghost sinking and reappearing along 

 the misty horizon; but it filled the mariner's 



