THE DISCOVERY 



soul with fear and added another haunting 

 mystery to the sea. 



At the north were terrors, more real perhaps, 

 and quite as fearsome. Snow and ice encom- 

 passed and wind overpowered. In the great 

 storms there were waves that rose from out 

 the hollows of the sea, beating and breaking 

 the stoutest timbers and sending ships stagger- 

 ing downward to their ocean grave with sails 

 still set and hands still clinging to the rigging. 

 And there, too, was the great maelstrom com- 

 pared with which Scylla and Charybdis were 

 mere eddies. Hundreds of leagues away the 

 suction of the whirl could be felt upon the hap- 

 less ship, and once caught no crowding on of 

 sail or bending to the oar could make head- 

 way against it. A monster polyp dwelt there 

 and stirred the pool with waving tentacles 

 and lived on human prey. Around him on the 

 deep sea-floor were spar and rib and anchor, 

 hulks of ships and dead men's bones and jewels 

 gleaming out of hollow e3'es. 



Not there nor elsewhere was tlie bottom of 

 the sea a longed-for dwelling-place. In the 

 still Mediterranean men had noticed far down 

 through the clear water the coral mounds, the 

 sea-forests, and the flat valleys of ooze. And 

 strange tales were told of voiceless cities that 



The great 

 nuielstroiii 



