Fathoms overhead the great vault hung unpropped. Sunlight shot in high up in rays and bars through piercings and lancet clefts, and one large rent that yet afforded no glimpse of the blue. The boy's eyes wavered and sank for solace to the liquid paving below, flawless and perfect as the jasper sea of heaven. There pure emerald melted and changed in subtle gradations to jade green and beryl green; from pale chrysoprase to dark malachite no stone of price could deny its name to colourings else matchless. And there reflection struck down a rich inlay that sard could not excel: not sard, agate, essonite, chalcedony, in master work of lapidaries; for the sombre rocks were dressed with the deep crimson of sea-moss, velvet fine. Amid the sober richness of weeds hung the amber of sponge-growths, blonds to enhance intense tertiaries. He saw that nature's structure showed certain gracious resemblances to human architecture: sheer rocks rose up from the water like the shattered plinths of columns; there were apses; there were aisles receding into far gloom; rayed lights overhead made a portion raftered, and slanting down a way hinted gothic sheaves and clerestory ruins. Temple and palace both it was to the eyes of the intruder. He could not conceive of any mortal, though noble and exalted among men, entering, possessing, presiding adequately in this wonderful sea sanctuary that nature had fashioned so gloriously, and hidden away so cunningly, with a covering of frowning crag, and fencing of reef and wave. He amended the thought to except the noblest dead. Supreme in dignity, excellent even here, high death crowning high life might be worshipped duly by such sepulture. A slab of rock like an altar tomb in the midst touched his perceptions to this issue.
CHAPTER III
Importunate above measure grew the question, barely displaced in the full flood of discovery: Was the unseen habitant familiar here? present here by some secret, easier ingress? He drew himself up from the water on the first rock, and, quiet as a watching otter, leant prone, till his faculties, abroad with wonder and awe, returned to level service. Not a sound, not a ripple came to disprove his utter solitude.
He slipped back into the water to examine further; a sense of profanation, not to be shaken off, subdued his spirit, and constrained him to diffident movement through the exceeding beauty of those jewelled aisles. Wherever he went play of light and colour encircled him: luminous weavings that strayed into shadowy angles, investing and adorning with delicate favours. Slender isles crept away into gloom, extending into mystery the actual dimensions of the great cavern: these he must enter, every one, for his thorough satisfaction. More than once the marbling and stains of the rocks deluded him, so like were they to frescoes—of battle array in confusion under a fierce winged sunset, of sea-beasts crouched and huddled, prone and supine, and again of sea-beasts locked together in strife. He came upon the likeness of a skull, an ill omen that dealt him a sudden thrill of superstitious fear. It needed close scrutiny in the vague light to decide that no hand of man had shaped all these. Once light broke in from above, and he saw overhead a narrow strip of intense blue, and a white flash from the wing of a passing sea-mew. He tried to scale the cleft, so to reach the heights of the main island; but the steep rocks gave no sufficient foothold, and he dropped back into the water bruised and discomfited. Tunnels and archways there were, too low and strait to let him pass. Attempting an arch, submerged like the way of his entrance, his broad shoulders got wedged, and he struggled back, strangling, spent, and warned against needless hazards.
He never noticed that in the great cavern one after another the rays of sunlight overhead shifted and withdrew, till twilight, advancing below, surprised him. His reckoning of time had been lost utterly, charmed out of him in the vast of beauty and mystery. In a moment he also realised that the lowest tiers of rocks had vanished below the water. The tide was rising. Hurriedly he shot away for return, and groped along the dim passage. The water had risen half-way towards the upper level, so that he mounted there with no difficulty, and made his way on, through the entrance cave, through the kelp-curtained cleft, and out again upon the smooth white sands.
Too late! That he knew by the sound of heavy waves booming from the outer ravine before his eyes could certify how the tide had made hours' advance, and was coming in with a strong, resistless swell that would make short work with the best swimmer alive. He scrambled up to a shoulder to get a sight of the reefs that had helped him on his way; the nearest was already gone, and a tumbling whirlpool marked its place. Except in the slack of the ebb it were madness to make the attempt. Sunlight still touched the heights, but the quick southern twilight makes short stand against night. Without question, till daybreak came with another ebb, on the Isle Sinister must he abide.
To make the best of his case, he sought while daylight lasted after shell-fish to stay his growing hunger. Then in the dusk he gathered dry weed and spread it for his couch on a ledge as high above the tide-mark as he could reach. It was a lateral cleft, as good for his purpose as any there. But he selected it not wholly with regard to comfort of body; its high remove above the mysterious footprints lent it best recommendation. For with growing darkness came a dread upon him; in an access of arrant superstition he conceived of some unimaginable thing stealing near upon woman's feet. Reason stood up for a mild human presence if any, but on ground no better than a quicksand, very lacking in substantial elements. Whence had those feet come? whither had they gone? He could not imagine a hiding too fine for his best vigilance, not in the open at least, in directions that the footprints positively indicated.
As darkness fell, all the tales that had made the place sinister in name and reputation came thronging his mind, assuming an aspect more grim than they ever before had worn. The resolution, the firm reason he had relied on for defence, began to quail before dread odds. What wonder? That day such an assault against reason had been made, such a breach lay wide and unrepaired, as left self-possession hard bestead. Then was he faithful to right worship; he prayed, and mortal terror invested him no longer.
Though faulty, ignorant, superstitious, the young fisher was, a rare sincerity ruled his spirit, an essential quality if prayer be to any purpose, even great in efficacy by its own intrinsic value.