in a swing;
but the sea grew quiet at last, and when he looked up it was dark,
the stars glittering in the dim blue vault above, and the smooth,
black water reflecting them all round him, so that he seemed to be
floating suspended between two vast, starry skies, one immeasurably
far above, the other below him. All night, with only the twinkling,
trembling stars for company, he lay there, naked, wet, and cold,
thirsty with the bitter taste of sea-salt in his mouth, never daring
to stir, listening to the continual lapping sound of the water.

Morning dawned at last; the sea was green once more, the sky blue,
and beautiful with the young, fresh light. He was lying on an old
raft of black, water-logged spars and planks lashed together with
chains and rotting ropes. But alas! there was no shore in sight, for
all night long he had been drifting, drifting further and further
away from land.

A strange habitation for Martin, the child of the plain, was that
old raft! It had been made by shipwrecked mariners, long, long ago,
and had floated about the sea until it had become of the sea, like a
half-submerged floating island; brown and many-coloured seaweeds had
attached themselves to it; strange creatures, half plant and half
animal, grew on it; and little shell-fish and numberless slimy,
creeping things of the sea made it their dwelling-place. It was
about as big as the floor of a large room, all rough, black, and
slippery, with the seaweed floating like ragged hair many yards long
around it, and right in the middle of the raft there was a large
hole where the wood had rotted away. Now, it was very curious that
when Martin looked over the side of the raft he could see down into
the clear, green water a few fathoms only; but when he crept to the
edge of the hole and looked into the water there, he was able to see
ten times further down. Looking in this hole, he saw far down a
strange, fish-shaped creature, striped like a zebra, with long
spines on its back, moving about to and fro. It disappeared, and then,
very much further down, something moved, first like a shadow, then
like a great, dark form; and as it came up higher it took the shape
of a man, but dim and vast like a man-shaped cloud or shadow that
floated in the green translucent water. The shoulders and head
appeared; then it changed its position and the face was towards him
with the vast eyes, that had a dim, greyish light in them, gazing up
into his. Martin trembled