dived, groped,
found justification in the arching rock, emerald flooded, struck boldly
through it, and rose to the surface beyond.

A glory of light and colour dazzled him, momentarily repulsing his
faculties from possession of a grand cavern, spacious, lofty, wonderful,
worthy to be the temple of a sea-god.

He found recovery, he found footing, then straightway lost himself in
wonder, for such splendours he had never dreamed could be.

Fathoms overhead the great vault hung unpropped. Sunlight shot in high up
in rays and bars through piercings and lancet clefts, and one large rent
that yet afforded no glimpse of the blue. The boy's eyes wavered and sank
for solace to the liquid paving below, flawless and perfect as the jasper
sea of heaven. There pure emerald melted and changed in subtle gradations
to jade green and beryl green; from pale chrysoprase to dark malachite
no stone of price could deny its name to colourings else matchless. And
there reflection struck down a rich inlay that sard could not excel: not
sard, 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. Temple and palace both it was to the eyes of the
intruder. He could not conceive of any mortal, though noble and exalted
among men, entering, possessing, presiding adequately in this wonderful
sea sanctuary that nature had fashioned so gloriously, and hidden away so
cunningly, with a covering of frowning crag, and fencing of reef and
wave. He amended the thought to except the noblest dead. Supreme in
dignity, excellent even here, high death crowning high life might be
worshipped duly by such sepulture. A slab of rock like an altar tomb in
the midst touched his perceptions to this issue.

CHAPTER III

Importunate above measure grew the question, barely displaced in the full
flood of discovery: Was the unseen habitant familiar here? present here
by some secret, easier ingress? He drew himself up from the water on the
firs