rspread the whole earth.

Down on the silver beach, crouched on one of the rocks that bordered the
shining pool, Knight worked with fevered intensity to catch the magic of
the hour. The light was wonderful. The pool shone strangely, deeply
green; the rocks about it might have been delicately carved in ivory.
And across the pool, clear-cut against the utter darkness of the Spear
Point Rock, stood Aphrodite the Beautiful, clad in some green
translucent draperies, her black hair loose about her, her white arms
outstretched to the moonlight, her face--exquisite as a flower--upturned
to meet the glory. She was like a dream too wonderful to be true, save
for the passion that lived in her eyes. That was vivid, that was
poignant--the fire of sacrifice burning inwardly.

The man worked on as one driven by a ruthless force. His teeth were
clenched upon his lower lip. His hands were shaking, and yet he knew
that what he did was too superb for criticism. It was the work of
genius--the driving force within that would not let him pause to listen
to the wild urgings of his heart. That might come after. But this--this
power that compelled was supreme. While it gripped him he was not his
own master. He was, as he himself had said, a slave.

And while he worked at its behest, watching the wonderful thing that
inspiration was weaving by his hand, scarcely conscious of effort,
though the perspiration was streaming down his face, he whispered over
and over between his clenched teeth the title of the picture that was to
astonish the world--"The Goddess Veiled in Foam."

There was no foam as yet on the pool, but he remembered how two nights
before he had seen the breaking of the first wave that had turned it
into a seething cauldron of surf. That was what he wanted now--just the
first great wave washing over her exquisite feet and flinging its
garment of spray like a flimsy veil over her perfect form. He wanted
that as he wanted nothing else on earth. And then--then--he would catch
his dream, he would chain for ever the fairy vision that might never be
granted again.

There came a boom like a distant gunshot on the other side of the Spear
Point Rock, and again, but very far away, there sounded the tolling of
the bell beyond the reef. The man's heart gave a great leap. It was
coming!

In the same moment the girl's voice came to him across the pool,
mingling with the rushing of great waters.

"The tide is coming up fast. It won't be saf