assertions that it was truly
truly as easy as easy. For he felt certain that even if he got down he
would never get up again. And so, when the triumphant shout from below
told him she was safely landed, he would wave a grateful hand and get
back from the edge and seat himself securely on a rock, till the rosy
face came laughing up between him and the shimmering sea, with trophy of
weed or shell or crystal quartz, and he would tell her all he knew about
them, and she would try to tell him of all he had missed by not coming
down.

There were wonderful great basins down there, all lined with pink and
green corallines, and full of the loveliest weeds and anemones and other
sea-flowers, and the rivulets that flowed from them to the sea were
lined pink and green, too. And this that she had brought him was the
flaming sea-weed, though truly it did not look it now, but in the water
it was, she assured him, of the loveliest, and there were great bunches
there so that the dark holes under the rocks were all alight with it.

She coaxed him doubtfully to the descent of the rounded headland facing
L'Etat, picking out an easy circuitous way for him, and so got him
safely down to her own special pool, hollowed out of the solid granite
by centuries of patient grinding on the part of the great boulders
within.

It was there, peering down at the fishes below, that she expressed a
wish to imitate them; and he agreeing, she ran up to the farm for a bit
of rope and was back before he had half comprehended all the beauties of
the pool. And he had no sooner explained the necessary movements to her
and she had tried them, than she cast off the rope, shouting, "I can
swim! I can swim!" and to his amazement swam across the pool and back--a
good fifty feet each way--chirping with delight in this new-found
faculty and the tonic kiss of the finest water in the world. But after
all it was not so very amazing, for she was absolutely without fear, and
in that water it is difficult to sink.

They were often down there together after that, for close alongside were
wonderful channels and basins whorled out of the rock in the most
fantastic ways, and to sit and watch the tide rush up them was a
never-failing entertainment.

And not far away was a blow-hole of the most extraordinary which shot
its spray a hundred feet into the air, and if you didn't mind getting
wet you could sit quite alongside it, so close that you could put your
hand into it as it