"But the Grotto, where is it?" I asked, staring at the huge cliffs, straight at which our red-sashed boatman was rowing us as if to destruction.
Skiff after skiff ahead of us was seen to be swallowed up in the cliffs in the most amazing way, and not an opening in the rocky wall to be seen. "You mustn't be afraid," said my sweet little guide, assuringly: "it won't hurt;" and she gave me her hand, that—perhaps I shouldn't tell—trembled a little, and directly its mate stole into my grasp.
"Lie low down," said our boatman, when the skiff was within a few feet of apparently smashing against the cliff.
"And shut your eyes tight," said Miss Bertha, screwing up her eyes so tight that she showed all of her pretty white teeth in the funniest way. The skiff scratched and bumped on the rocks a few times, and then floated clear.
The bright sky was gone, the gulls flying about the cliffs were gone, the steamer was gone, and the cliffs themselves were gone: we had slipped under them, through a tiny opening, and were in the Blue Grotto. The blue roof rose high above us, and there was ample room within the Grotto for many times the numerous blue skiffs filled with blue-haired blue people, all dressed in blue clothes, and breathing blue air. That is just the way we appeared. The water was lighter-colored than the air, and when a boatman jumped overboard, his every action being distinctly seen, he seemed to be flying in air, and not diving in water. It gave one a weird crawly feeling to see him, and when he came to the surface it seemed to be the most natural thing for him to tumble back to us after capering around in the sky. Then he crawled out on a rock to allow the water to drain off his clothes, and then it was that Miss Bertha's promise of a silver man was made good. He stood there a moment, appearing like a burnished silver statue, and the trickling drops as they fell from him sparkled with silvery glitter.
An oar splashed in the water sent the drops flying into the blue air, to glimmer there in silver brightness a moment, like a patch of the starry Milky Way on a frosty night.
"Isn't it lovely!" said Bertha, clapping her hands joyfully; "and you can get a whole handful of silver by just reaching for it, but you can't keep it." She grasped the blue water as she spoke, and it escaped through her fingers in glittering drops, as if a handful of coins was melting in her palm. Whatever is held in the water assumes, for the time, this silver-color, and the blades of the oars shone as though the Capri boatmen were so rich that they had made them of pure silver.
For hundreds of years the Grotto was known to exist somewhere under the cliffs of the island, but so small is the entrance that it was not rediscovered until this century. It can not be entered except the sea around the island is very calm; and as all the beautiful effects are due to the refraction of light, the bright mid-day sun should be shining without.