VIII
VISIONS
The touch of the earth seemed strange to me after nearly a week spent at sea, and as I sprang from the launch on to the rough rocks, aided by Santoris, I was for a moment faint and giddy. The dark mountain summits seemed to swirl round me,—and the glittering water, shining like steel, had the weird effect of a great mirror in which a fluttering vision of something undefined and undeclared rose and passed like a breath. I recovered myself with an effort and stood still, trying to control the foolish throbbing of my heart, while my companion gave a few orders to his men in a language which I thought I knew, though I could not follow it.
"Are you speaking Gaelic?" I asked him, with a smile.
"No!—only something very like it—Phoenician."
He looked straight at me as he said this, and his eyes, darkly blue and brilliant, expressed a world of suggestion. He went on:—
"All this country was familiar ground to the Phoenician colonists of ages ago. I am sure you know that! The Gaelic tongue is the genuine dialect of the ancient Phoenician Celtic, and when I speak the original language to a Highlander who only knows his native Gaelic he understands me perfectly."
I was silent. We moved away from the shore, walking slowly side by side. Presently I paused, looking back at the launch we had just left.
"Your men are not Highlanders?"
"No—they are from Egypt."