tten his mother. He was serious again.
Something pink, something soft waved in front of him. He made a grab at
it and it immediately disappeared. But when he lay back, another, like
the first, appeared. This time he determined to catch it. He made a
tremendous effort and rolled right over.

Chapter 1.VII.

The tide was out; the beach was deserted; lazily flopped the warm sea.
The sun beat down, beat down hot and fiery on the fine sand, baking
the grey and blue and black and white-veined pebbles. It sucked up the
little drop of water that lay in the hollow of the curved shells; it
bleached the pink convolvulus that threaded through and through
the sand-hills. Nothing seemed to move but the small sand-hoppers.
Pit-pit-pit! They were never still.

Over there on the weed-hung rocks that looked at low tide like shaggy
beasts come down to the water to drink, the sunlight seemed to spin like
a silver coin dropped into each of the small rock pools. They danced,
they quivered, and minute ripples laved the porous shores. Looking
down, bending over, each pool was like a lake with pink and blue houses
clustered on the shores; and oh! the vast mountainous country behind
those houses--the ravines, the passes, the dangerous creeks and
fearful tracks that led to the water's edge. Underneath waved the
sea-forest--pink thread-like trees, velvet anemones, and orange
berry-spotted weeds. Now a stone on the bottom moved, rocked, and there
was a glimpse of a black feeler; now a thread-like creature wavered by
and was lost. Something was happening to the pink, waving trees; they
were changing to a cold moonlight blue. And now there sounded the
faintest "plop." Who made that sound? What was going on down there? And
how strong, how damp the seaweed smelt in the hot sun...

The green blinds were drawn in the bungalows of the summer colony. Over
the verandas, prone on the paddock, flung over the fences, there were
exhausted-looking bathing-dresses and rough striped towels. Each back
window seemed to have a pair of sand-shoes on the sill and some lumps of
rock or a bucket or a collection of pawa shells. The bush quivered in
a haze of heat; the sandy road was empty except for the Trouts' dog
Snooker, who lay stretched in the very middle of it. His blue eye
was turned up, his legs stuck out stiffly, and he gave an occasional
desperate-sounding puff, as much as to say he had decided to make an end
of it and was only waiting for some kind cart t