The Unknown Sea

e, though his skin had been tanned to a red-brown, dark as the tint of the slender, dark-eyed, olive-skinned fishers born under these

d, his blossom, his queen; and for his warrant well built she was, promising strength and speed in due degrees, and beautiful obedience to him. Her pain

s beyond, a dark mass rose dominant, like a sullen outcast from the land holding rule, whose mere aspect fitted well the name, Isle Sinister, without an evil implication that went therewith. The young fisher's memory was stored with dark tales, born long ago to night and fear, cherished by gene

her very ashes delivered to the sea. Woe even to the man who dare take any least splinter to burn on his hearth, for sickness and death would desolate his home. Nay, if a shifting wind but carried the ashes landwards, blight or murrain would follow surely. So went tradition, and conviction attended it well,

cious word had escaped, sped by a temper aflame, for which he had suffered-from youngsters a day's derision, from a strict elder a look that was worse disgrace. He deemed that might come to be recalled to his credit. Now that he was grown to a strength unmatched, with a heart proud and eager, impatient of any mastery not of love and reverence, a notion pleased him that like enough these tales had been magnified to recover the self-esteem of balke

it, Beloved,

nd swelled again, and the boat heeled, as boldly he turned her, and steered within the buoy-bells away fo

l, steering with fine sleight through the narrows, and avoiding eddies, he carried his boat unscathed where never another man he knew could dare to follow. But ah! how meagre was that satisfaction, since far, yet too far from him the Isle Sinister held reserve. But at least he was able to scan the rocky mass to advantage. It towered

k. Were but one other with us we might be well-nigh confident. With Philip at t

unken hulk of an old wreck. Fiercer eddies and narrower channels constrained him to drop sail and take to the o

ld jeer; ay, with worse, too. It might go hard with me. But you, Beloved, never fear th

y the tale, not till we both have disproved and outlived th

r a sudden apprehension. If he were sighted from above, what should stay those bells from knelling for him. He held his breath, and listened for them to break silence on the instant, realising one peril which he had not before considered. 'Hark!' would

ominion of powers darker than death, too regnant there. The best, the only, succour was this that human fellowship could accomplish for doomed lives. Now, though cultured intelligence smiled at the larger

hard, for the tide ran, and suddenly declared that retreat to the open sea was cut off: where he had sailed free channels rocks grinned; reason withstood a fancy that they had lain in ambush, and risen actually to hem him in. Twice he risked

de. He could spare only a moment to catch up his coat, plug with it hastily, and drag atop the heavy cross-beams of his tackle; quick upon the oars again he needed to be, desperate of baling. Still the water oozed and trickled

he near sure prospect of swimming for bare life among the breakers opened his eyes. He had held as his very own to risk at will his boat and his life; now, with pangs of remorse, he recognised the superior claim of a gre

t point by point success attended, and released the foolhardy lad and his boat from dire extremity. They have chance of clean deliverance;

rry, so little above the water was the gunwale. He had halved the distance, when down she went beneath

stretchers, his boat might be recovered from the out tide, but

trace of his perilous way; for an alternative he could not enterta

e it must have been that, not so long ago, wreckage had been gathered and burned scrupulously, and with it the bodies of two drowned men, according to the custom of the coast.

t, his abashed vigour fain of any new output. An uncertain path promised fairly till half way, where a recent lapse turned him aside on to untried slopes and ledges: a perilous ascent to any not bold an

d among