And as we drifted on, our boat yielding to the gentle swells, I amused myself in looking over the side, and contemplating the forms of marine life which the transparent water revealed to our gaze. The bottom was distinctly visible, studded with the wonderful products of the coral polypus, here spreading out like fans, there taking the forms of flattened globes radiating with spines, and yonder shooting up in branching, antler-like stems. Dark patches of jelly-like sponge, the white shells of myriads of conchs, and occasionally a large fish, whose pulsating gills alone gave sign of life—all these contributed to lend variety and interest to those glimpses of the bottom of the sea. It was to me a new revelation of Nature, and as I gazed, and gazed, the musical song of the “dainty Ariel” rang its bell-like cadences in my ears;
“Full fathoms five thy father lies;
Of his bones are corals made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange!”
Our men stretched themselves in the bottom of the boat, waiting, as they said, for the evening breeze. But the evening breeze came not, and they were finally obliged to paddle the boat to the nearest cay—a coral gem indeed, with its clustering palms, drooping gracefully over the sea, as if, Narcissus-like, contemplating their own beauty in its mirror-like surface.
The moon was in her first quarter, and as she rose above the placid sea, revealing the island in its isolation and beauty, jeweled round with cays, I seated myself apart, on the sand of the shore, and drank in the beauty of the scene. Gradually my thoughts recurred to the past, and I could hardly realize that but little more than five months had elapsed since I had held an unwitting conference with the demon, in my little studio in White-street. And yet what an age of excitement and adventure had been crowded in that brief space! I felt that I had entered upon a new world of ideas and impressions, and wondered to think that I had lived so long immured in the dull, unsympathizing heart of the crowded city. It was with a pang of regret that I now found myself drifting upon civilization again. A few days would bring me to Belize, where I knew Antonio would leave me, to return to the fastnesses of his people. Where then should I go?