WET MAGIC . 
ii" 
captive balloons, will be able to appreciate 
the sensations of the four children to whom 
this gloomy catastrophe had occurred. 
The net was very strong — made of twisted 
fibrous filaments of seaweed ; all efforts to 
break it were vain. And they had, unfortu- 
nately, nothing to cut it with. They had 
not even their oyster-shells, the rough edges 
of which might have done something to help, 
or at least would have been useful weapons 
if, and when, the Infantryman stopped and 
opened the net. The discomfort of their 
position was extreme. They were, as Cathy 
put it, all mixed up with each other’s 
arms and legs, and it wa$ very difficult and 
painful to sort themselves out without 
hurting each other. 
“ Let’s do it one at a time,” said Mavis, 
after some minutes of severe and unsuccessful 
struggle. “ France first. Get right away, 
France, and see if you can’t sit down on a 
piece of the net that isn’t covered with us, 
and then Cathy can try.” 
It was excellent advice, and when all four 
had followed it it was found possible to sit- 
side bv side on what may be called the floor 
of the net, only the squeezing of the net- 
walls tended to flip one up from one’s place 
if one wasn’t very careful. 
By the time the rearrangement was com- 
plete and they were free to look about them 
the whole aspect of the world had changed. 
The world, for one thing, was much darker 
in itself, that is — though the part of it where 
voi. xivu— -ie. 
the children were was much lighter than had 
been the sea where they were first netted. 
It was a curious scene — rather like looking 
down on London at night from the top of St. 
Paul’s. Long, bright things — like trams or 
omnibuses — were rushing along, and smaller 
lights, which looked mightily like cabs and 
carriages dotted the expanse of blackness 
till, where they were thick-set, the darkness 
disappeared in a blaze of silvery light. Other 
light-bearers had rows of round lights like 
the portholes of great liners. One came 
sweeping towards them, and a wild idea 
came to Cathy that perhaps when ships sink 
they go on living and moving under water 
just as she and the others had done. 
Anyhow, this was not one of them, for, as it 
came close, it was plainly to be perceived as 
a vast fish, with phosphorescent lights in 
rows along its gigantic sides. It opened its 
jaws as it passed, and for an instant they 
shut their eyes and felt that all was over. 
When their eyes were opened again the 
mighty fish w T as far away. Cathy, however, 
was discovered to be in tears. 
“ 1 wish we hadn’t come,” she said, and the 
others could not but feel that there was some- 
thing in what she said. They comforted her 
and themselves as best they could by express- 
ing a curious half-certainty which they had 
that everything would be all right in the end. 
As I said before, there are some things so 
horrible that if you can bring yourself to face 
them you see at once that they can’t be true, 
