ld about the ship trails of fire in the sea,
crossing and re-crossing each other, and the fire marked the ways of
huge blue fishes, swift and terrible; and the Sea-farers prayed that
these malignant searchers of the deep might not rise into the air and
fall ravening upon them while they slept. In the darkness strange
patches and tangles of light, blue and golden and emerald, floated past
them, and these they discovered were living creatures to which they
could give no names. Often also the sea was alive with fire, which
flashed and ran along the ridges of the waves when they curled and
broke, and many a night the sides of the ship were washed with flame,
but this fire was wet and cold, and nowise hurt a hand of those who
touched it.

At last on a clear morning the little chorister came hastily to
Serapion and said: "Look, father, is not yon a glimmer of the heavenly
land we seek?"

"Nay, little son, it is but grey cloud that has not yet caught the
sun," replied Serapion.

"That, indeed, is cloud; but look higher, father. See how white and
sharp it shines!"

Then Serapion lifted up his eyes above the cloud, and in mid heaven
there floated as it were a great rock of pointed crystal, white and
unearthly. Serapion's eyes brightened with eagerness, and the
Sea-farers gazed long at the peak, which rather seemed a star, or a
headland on some celestial shore, so bright and dreamlike was it and so
magically poised in the high air.

All day they sailed towards it, and sometimes it vanished from their
view, but it returned constantly. On the third day they came to that
land. Bright and beautiful it was to their sea-wearied eyes; and of a
surety no land is there that goes so nearly to heaven. For it rose in
green and flowery heights till it was lost in a ring of dusky
sea-cloud; and through this vast ring of cloud it pierced its way, and
the Sea-farers saw it emerge and stand clear above the cloud, bluish
with the distance. And higher still it rose, and entered a second
great cloud-ring, but this ring was white; and once more it emerged
from the cloud-ring, and high over all towered the pyramid of shining
stone.

"Well might it be that Angels often alight on this soaring mountain,"
said Serapion, "and leave it glittering with their footprints. If life
and strength be given us, thither we also shall climb, and praise God
in the lofty places of the earth which He has made."

They steered the ship into a sunny bay