The Unknown Sea

fect keeping with the sovereign peace of the grave; that blank, unadorned environment of nature had the very beauty that can touch human sense with the concord of death. The young fisher stood moti

is heart, 'for I too

l to indicate reserve; on the other he approached the base of the bell-tower itself, and the flanks of the House Monitory. He looked up at the walls, fully expecting to be spied and brought to rebuke; but all was blank and quiet as among the dead outside. The tower rose sheer int

ting, by women's voices, poor and few, told him that he stood without their chapel; and he understood that the low door giving upon the place of graves had

entrance door. There he stood long, not finally determined what he had come to say. It was rep

igures. High upon its face they stood, where a natural suggestion had been abetted by man, a rough pediment shaped above, a rou

eft. The stone figures clapped back an echo. His heart sprang an invocation in response, and straightway he relinquished thought of aski

n the sunshine, said this: 'Of your charity give food to a hungry body.' She paused and lo

rew silently, and presently returning handed a portion of bread. She said, 'N

ed. Thanks stumbled on his tongue, and no word to exc

ed, she saw that he was instantly away, and mounted high by the three stone saints. She saw that he touched their feet reverently

g and earnestly; for from that high ledge he saw away to the Isle Sinister, encompassed with it

forbade his boat, but him they fairly invited, if strong swimming and deft footing could pass him on,

s that he was bound to encounter for regaining the open s

he leak plugged quite sufficiently for the time, the anchor set out against t

nd so cruel. The waves hustled and buffeted and hurled; and though he prevailed by slow degrees, the rocks connived for his detriment. Again and again he won to a resting-place, so battered, breathless, and spent, that to nourish fortitude

rdly escaping, gashed and stunned. His memory afterwards could but indistinctly record how he fared thenceforward with rock and wave. A nightmare remained of swirling

his voice struck out wild and weak. The ledge was so narrow, that while his back rested against the rock his feet dangled; he was nearly naked; he was bleeding; soon for return he must face peril again. Looking down at the waters below, leaping and snarling, and over the wild expanse he had passed,

answering so was

difficult ledge of rock round to the front, where by steep grades the Isle showed some

een each and each a narrow vertical strip of sea and heaven struck blindingly sweet and blue. Sea-birds wheeled and clamoured, misliking th

hold footing debatable with the jealous sea. Close against the line of surf, at a half-way point between the solid wall of the Isle and the broken wall of the Warders, he looked up at either height north and south. Equal towards the zenith they rose

ars of the rock it showed; deep it went, and wound deeper at his nearing. He entered the gape over boulders, and a way still there was wide before him; he took nine paces with gloom confronting, a tenth-

ck through the gorge, and again over the sunlit open; it was hard to believe he was out of dreamland, so Eden-bright and perfect was this contrast to the grand sombre chasm he had left. White and smooth, the sands extended up to the base of the dark rocks. There rich drapery of weed indicated the tide-mark; strips of captu

of tender colour that evade the fact of a name, these delicate cullings lay strewn, and fragile shells of manifold beauty and design. There, among weed and shell, he spied a branch of coral, and habit and calling drew him to it instantly. He had neve

that would not be shut off by them. He stooped to examine the naked footprint, and was staggered by the evidence it gave; for this impression, firm and light, had an outward trend, a size, a slightness, most like a woman's. It was set

ry sign failed among pools and weedy boulders; circled with all speed, snatc

an there. Compassion cried, Poor soul! poor soul! without reservation, and aloud he called hearty reassurance, full-lunged, high-pitched. Tho

, and never a one developed a cave; but he called in vain. The sea limited him to a spare face of the I

ts pondering uneasily. Had he scared a woman unclothed, who now in the shame and fear of sex crouched per

m inscrutable rock to obliterate sea, gave a positive indication circumstantially denied on every hand. The bewildered boy reckoned he would have been better satisfied to have lighted on some uncanny slo

his stout endeavour to scale up to the main rock above, that from the high wall receded and ascen

rves held splendours of the sea's living blossoms: glowing beds of anemones full blown, with purples of iris and orchis, clover red, rose red, sorrel red, hues of primrose and saffron, broad spread like great chrysanthemums' bosse

hand through and encountered, not rock, but a void behind; he parted the thick fall of weed, and a narrow cleft was uncurtained, with blackness beyond, that to his peering dissolved into a cool, dim sea-cave, floored with water semil

roke and ran for the walls, casting up against them paler repeats; when he halted, faint sound from them wapped and sobbed, dominant items in a silence hardl

he quiet darkness on his spirit. Mystery stepped here with an intimate touch, absent when under the open

heard multiply in fading whispers through the hovering da

ine to the footprints, knelt by the last, and set his fingers in the sand for inscription. For a long moment he considered, for no words seemed effectual to deliver his complexed mind. When he wrote it was a sentence of singular construction, truly indicative of how vague awe and dread had uprisen to take large standing beside simple humane solicitude. He traced thr

he water-way ended, closed in by a breastwork of rock. But, this surmounted, the boy saw water again, of absolute green, dark as any stone of royal malachite. The level was lower by

eatened it, and he swam warily till it altered again, unaccountably. As his passing troubled the placid water, and ripples of colourless light, circling away from

swam to and fro in vain quest of an outlet, till his wits leapt on a fair surmise that inlets for light there must be submerged. Down

ing his faculties from possession of a grand cavern, spacio

straightway lost himself in wonder, for su

agate, essonite, chalcedony, in master work of lapidaries; for the sombre rocks were dressed with the deep crimson of sea-moss, velvet fine. Amid the sober richness of weeds hung the amber of sponge-growths, blonds to enhance intense tertiaries. He saw that nature's structure showed certain gracious resemblances to human architecture: sheer rocks rose up from the water like the shattered plinths of columns; there were apses; there were aisles receding into far gloom; rayed lights overhead made a portion raftered, and slanting down a way hinted gothic sheaves and clerestory ruins. Te