the water.

As he suspected, there was an opening there in which the creature had
evidently taken refuge. It was more than a crevice; it was a kind of
porch.

The sea entered beneath it, but was not deep. The bottom was visible,
covered with large pebbles. The pebbles were green and clothed with
_confervae_, indicating that they were never dry. They were like the tops
of a number of heads of infants, covered with a kind of green hair.

Holding his knife between his teeth, Gilliatt descended, by the help of
feet and hands, from the upper part of the escarpment, and leaped into
the water. It reached almost to his shoulders.

He made his way through the porch, and found himself in a blind passage,
with a roof in the form of a rude arch over his head. The walls were
polished and slippery. The crab was nowhere visible. He gained his feet
and advanced in daylight growing fainter, so that he began to lose the
power to distinguish objects.

At about fifteen paces the vaulted roof ended overhead. He had
penetrated beyond the blind passage. There was here more space, and
consequently more daylight. The pupils of his eyes, moreover, had
dilated; he could see pretty clearly. He was taken by surprise.

He had made his way again into the singular cavern which he had visited
in the previous month. The only difference was that he had entered by
the way of the sea.

It was through the submarine arch, that he had remarked before, that he
had just entered. At certain low tides it was accessible.

His eyes became more accustomed to the place. His vision became clearer
and clearer. He was astonished. He found himself again in that
extraordinary palace of shadows; saw again before his eyes that vaulted
roof, those columns, those purple and blood-like stains, that vegetation
rich with gems, and at the farther end, that crypt or sanctuary, and
that altar-like stone. He took little notice of these details, but their
impression was in his mind, and he saw that the place was unchanged.

He observed before him, at a certain height in the wall, the crevice
through which he had penetrated the first time, and which, from the
point where he now stood, appeared inaccessible.

Near the moulded arch, he remarked those low dark grottoes, a sort of
caves within a cavern, which he had already observed from a distance. He
now stood nearer to them. The entrance to the nearest to him was out of
the water, and easily approachable. Nearer still than