August 30, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
17 
and before the choice of Roman society, was like one of those 
readings in the days of powder and peruke, When poets were, 
still elegant, and a part of society's amusement. D'Annunzio, 
small, blond, at once eager and discreet, with the air of a per- 
fectly charming bird of prey, his eyes full of bland smiles, 
his mouth, with its uplifted moustache, poised in a keen 
expectant smile, had indeed the air of a court poet as he stood 
in th_ ante-room greeting his friends as they entered, before he 
made his way to the dais, draped at the back with crimson 
cloth, where he sat down atthe table on which were his MS. and 
a Bible. Once seated, the reading once begun, \ou saw tlurt 
other side to what you might liave tliought the merely mundane 
young man ; you saw the artist, whc), as he told me, was well 
content if twelve hours' work had given him two pages ; for 
his own words visibly absorbed, possessed him ; he never lifted 
. his. eyes from the. paper, he read all that chanting prose as if 
he were reading it, not to the duchesses, but to the unseen 
company of the immortal judges of art. It had been announced 
that the conference was to be by someone else ; and one care- 
ful mother went to the host, and asked if he thought !ier 
daughter might remain. A French abbe, who had come to 
hear the une.xccptionable Costa, seeing d'Annunzio, quietly 
disappeared. Neither the abbe nor the mother need have been 
alarmed. D'Annunzio first read the parable out of the Bible, 
then his gloss upon it. The gloss was full of colour and music 
Then he read one of the most delicate of his' poems, ••Villa 
Chigi." Every one was eharnn-d, d'Annunzio and all ills 
hearers ; and then the duchesses went. 
An August Day, 1915 
By Bertha Harrison 
JUST at dawn there were two explosions. 
The waking hours brought a perfect autumn day. 
The sun shone, a soft haze hung o\er the woods and 
deepened the blue shadows in the folds of the great 
downs. From time to -time an erratic breeze ruftled 
the smooth sea. The larks sang loudly and disputed the 
sovereignty of the upper air with other flying things — 
featherless — gigantic — that also sang loudly, but in a lower 
key. In the roadstead where some twenty ships — chiefly 
. neutrals — lay at anchor, the patrols were very busy running 
about paying visits now to one ship now to another. 
All at once the guardship — a respectable, elderly steamer, 
of comfortable build — slipped her moorings and began 
. " racing about iUfull speed, her .^ inch gun barking defiantly. • 
[ After a few minutes she described a circle, tiring into the centre 
as she turned ; then, the manoeuvre completed, she paused a 
minute or two as if to breathe herself, and returned to her 
moorings as if nothing untoward had happened. 
After this we went out for a walk. 
Our path lay' over high grass fields and slanted into a narrow 
valley with a steep climb on the opposite side. Down that 
smooth green slope came an elderly gentleman of benign 
appearance but with a troubled look in his eyes. He stopped 
and passed the time of day. Then : " of course you have seen 
■ the wreck," he said. No, wo had not seen it. "You will 
find it over there "—he pointed to where the cliff edge cut 
the .sky line^" as usual the murderous devils had done the 
job thoroughly." And he went his way down the hill. 
The cliff fell sheer 300 feet to the shingle beach ; and not 
lialf a mile from the shore lay the martyred .ship— an oil 
> tank steamer of some 3,000 tons ; built in the usual manner 
of her class, with high bows and engines aft. 
The job had been thoroughly done ; she was a total wreck. 
The torpedo had exploded in the engine room, so her stern 
was entirely su'omerged and she was, so to speak, sitting on her 
own tail. Her' navigating bridge amidships was almost a- 
wash, and her shattered funnel, rising at a strange angle from 
the water, only waited a blow from a moderate wave to carry 
away altogether. 
She was a piteous sight ; verily a mark of the Beast — an 
abomination of the Desolator. There is that in the aspect of 
a wrecked or disabled ship which rouses feelings akin to those 
excited by seeing a beautiful animal wounded to death ; 
and it was in such a mind we looked on the latest victim of the 
enemy's morning Hate. 
There was no sign of life aboard her. The living and some 
ol the dead had been taken off earlier in the morning and landed 
at the little town two miles away. Half a dozen gulls chatter- 
ing querulously, and a young porpoise — his black fin showing 
from time to time as he chased his lunch — were the sole com- 
panions of the poor thing, and to them she was of no con- 
sequence at all. J 
There are many inhabitants of the 'British Isles to whom 
the cold blooded savagery of the enemy is still but a name. 
They are somewhat shocked by reading of its manifestation 
in the papers ; but the daily recital has begome so familiar 
t(j the public mind as to reduce it nearly to the state men- 
tioned in a certain homely proverb. i . ^ 
To us, however, the thing came home as a ?:oncf'ete horror. 
Destruction ha'd' been wrought and men killed almost before 
our eyes. The enemy in his actual person was somewhere 
under that calm blue water. 
A further proof of his presence and activity awaited us 
beyond the next headland, where a big steamer loaded with 
timber was also in distress. She was afloat, thoujih evidently 
badly holed ; and so low in the water as to seem in inuninent 
danger of sinking. Proljably, however, her cargo -much of 
which she carried on deck helped to keep her up ; and with 
some assistance she might get safely into port. Two power- 
ful tugs had already arrived and \sire preparing to take her 
in tow. A little group of trawlers stood by. 
A black destroyer slid up from 'the south, gave some orders 
and proceeded northwards. The tugs followed with the timber 
ship. The -trawlers dispersed. All vanished in the misty 
distance. 
Then there was nothing left on the sea except the lightship 
about three mUes off. 
Lightships are dull. They do not look like proper ships ; 
but are clumsy things, modelled apparently after the pattern 
of those drawn by small children. Moreover, they make no 
appeal to the imagination of the adventurous, for they are 
always in the same place : and when— on a fine afternoon-j- 
they bellow at^r^ular intervals, they are irritating^to people 
on shore. 
1 1 was a beautiful afternoon ; land and sea were full of colour. 
The turf was like a gay carpet, so thick were the flowers, 
eyebright. yelltjw crepis, pink and white clover, daisies, 
scabious, harebells, yellow loto> ; with here and there clumps 
of ladies' tresses ; smallest and sweetest of English orchids. 
Wide patches of purple field gentians, delicate pink erigerons 
and golden thistles brought back happy memories of Alpine 
valleys. The great knapweed and the wild mignonette 
fringed the cliffs with purple and pale gold ; and beyond, an 
ultramarine sea melted into pearly distance. 
The air was warm and balmy. The odours of the grass and 
flowers mixed pleasantly with the sharp salt smell of the sea. 
The small waxes fell lazily on the shore. Everything seemed 
at peace except the lightship. 
Presently, a little to the east of that discontented thing, a 
trawler emerged from the mist, .\fter describing some curious 
evolutions, she began tiring as if she were at target practice. 
The shells hit the blue water into spirts of white foam. 
It was interesting to speculate as to what might happen. 
Mines ? Possibly ; though as a rule they are settled with 
rifle fire. Srtill ..."... 
The lightship bellowed on,, but with uncertain tremulous 
tones, like a distressed cow. An aeroplane came droning 
along like a cockchafer on a June evening and flew out over the 
water ; it seemed she had a_ little word to say in the matter. 
A bomb flashed in mid-air. The trawler fired once more, 
then held her peace. The lightship ceased complaining. 
Suddenly the earth was seized with a great trembling as 
from an earthquake shock and there came a loud noise ]of 
rushing water. 
Not far from the lightship the sea had become violently 
agitated. There was a boiling whirlpool of fierce white watt*", 
with breakers hissing angrily as they foamed and tossed 
themselves in all directions. It seemed as if the uttermpst 
depths werl being churned up by some irresistible unseen 
force. A few seconds — then a prolonged, heavy, thunderous 
roar shook the air and beat upon the ears with stupefying in- 
tensity. It was a terrifying sound. It surged up over the 
land and rolled away sullenly among the hills. 
The sun shone. The warm air moved lightly over the scented 
land. The little waves crawled among the stones along the 
shore. The depths of the sea held the silence of death. 
• In the warm evening light the trawlers went home to their 
base. They steamed in single line ahead, keeping distance 
with the precision of a first class battle fleet. 
One among them was a happy little ship and well contented 
with the day's work, (iood hunting had fallen to her lot. 
The evil wrought at tlav\ n had been amply avenged before snn- 
,set, and in that swift vengeance there was poetic justice. 
The Sea Beast had been rent in pieces from within by her own 
vile spawn. 
