it,
being sure they will mean nothing except to those to whom they mean
something. Those words, like certain moonbeams, which stir in us that
not ourselves which makes for righteousness, or lunacy, combine only by
chance. The combination which unlocks the secret cannot be stated, or it
would not work. When there is a fortuitous coincidence of the magic
factors, the result is as remarkable to us as it is to those who think
they know us. When I used to stand on London's foreshore, gazing to what
was beyond our street lamps, the names on the chart had a meaning for me
which is outside the usual methods of human communication. The Dogger
Bank!

Here then it was, yet still to be seen only by faith. It was like Mrs.
Harris. I had the luck to discover that I should lose nothing through my
visit; and every traveller knows how much he gains when the place he has
wished to visit allows him to take away from it no less than what he
brought with him. The Bank was twenty fathoms under us. We saw it
proved at times when a little fine white sand came up, or fleshy yellow
fingers, called sponge by the men, which showed we were over the pastures
of the haddock. That was all we saw of a foundered region of prehistoric
Europe, where once there was a ridge in the valley of that lost river to
which the Rhine and Thames were tributaries. Our forefathers,
prospecting that attractive and remunerative plateau of the Dogger, on
their pilgrimage to begin making our England what it is, caught deer
where we were netting cod. I almost shuddered at the thought, as though
even then I felt the trawl of another race of men, who had strangely
forgotten all our noble deeds and precious memories, catching in the ruin
of St. Stephen's Tower, and the strangers, unaware of what august relic
was beneath them, cursing that obstruction to their progress. Anyhow, we
should have the laugh of them there; but these aeons of time are
desperate waters into which to sink one's thought. It sinks out of
sight. It goes down to dark nothing.

Well, it happened to be the sun of my day just then, and our time for
catching cod, with the reasonable hope, too, that we should find the city
still under St. Stephen's Tower when we got back, as a place to sell our
catch.

Our empty boxes were discharged. Led by the admiral, the
_Windhover_--with the rest of the fleet--lowered her trawl, and went
dipping slowly and quietly over the hills, towing her sunken net.