OF THE SOUTH SEAS 25 



ored for my string? Would I go to the Dangerous 

 Archipelago, those mystic atolls that sent to the Em- 

 press Eugenie that magnificent necklace of pearls she 

 wore at the great ball at the Tuileries when the foolish 

 Napoleon made up his mind to emulate his great name- 

 sake and make war? Would I there see those divers 

 who are said to surpass all the mermen of legend in the 

 depths they go in their coral-studded lagoons in search 

 of the jewels that hide in gold-lipped shells? Was it 

 for me to wander among those fabulous coral isles flung 

 for a thousand miles upon the sapphire sea, like wreaths 

 of lilies upon a magic lake ? 



The doldrums brought rain before the southeast wind 

 came to urge us faster on our course and to clear the 

 skies. Now we were in the deep tropics, five or six 

 hundred miles farther south than Honolulu, and plung- 

 ing toward the imaginary circle which is the magic ring 

 of the men who steer ships in all oceans. Our breeze 

 was that they pray for when the wind alone must drive 

 the towering trees of -canvas toward Australia from 

 America. 



The breeze held on while games of the formal tourna- 

 ments progressed, and prizes were won by the young 

 and the spry. 



One night I came on deck when the moon had risen 

 an hour, and saw as strange and beautiful a sight as ever 

 made me sigh for the lack of numbers in my soul. A 

 huge, long, black cloud hung pendent from midway in 

 the sky, with its lower part resting on the sea. It was 

 for all the world of marvels like a great dragon, shaped 

 rudely to a semblance of the beast of the Apocalypse, 

 and with its head lifted into the ether, so that it was 



