dressed as a ship's boy, at other times caroling
in Valencian the chanteys of the coast--fishermen's songs invented as
they drew in their nets, in which most shameless words were flung
together on the chance of making them rhyme. In certain windings of the
coast the sail would be lowered, leaving the boat with no other motion
than a gentle rocking around its anchor rope.

Upon seeing the space which had been obscured by the shadow of the
boat's hulk, Ulysses found the bottom of the sea so near that he almost
believed that he could touch it with the point of his oar. The rocks
were like glass. In their interstices and hollows the plants were
moving like living creatures, and the little animals had the
immovability of vegetables and stones. The boat appeared to be floating
in the air and athwart the liquid atmosphere that wraps this abysmal
world, the fish hooks were dangling, and a swarm of fishes was swimming
and wriggling toward its encounter with death.

It was a sparkling effervescence of yellowing flames, of bluish backs
and rosy fins. Some came out from the caves silvered and vibrant as
lightning flashes of mercury; others swam slowly, big-bellied, almost
circular, with a golden coat of mail. Along the slopes, the crustaceans
came scrambling along on their double row of claws attracted by this
novelty that was changing the mortal calm of the under-sea where all
follow and devour, only to be devoured in turn. Near the surface
floated the medusae, living parasols of an opaline whiteness with
circular borders of lilac or red bronze. Under their gelatinous domes
was the skein of filaments that served them for locomotion, nutrition
and reproduction.

The fishermen had only to pull in their lines and a new prisoner would
fall into their boat. Their baskets were filling up so fast that the
_Triton_ and his nephew grew tired of this easy fishing.... The sun was
now near the height of its curve, and every wavelet was carrying away a
bit of the golden band that divided the blue immensity. The wood of the
boat appeared to be on fire.

"We've earned our day's pay," said the _Triton_, looking at the sky and
then at the baskets. "Now let's clean up a little bit."

And stripping off his clothing, he threw himself into the sea. Ulysses
saw him descend from the center of the ring of foam opened by his body,
and could gauge by it the profundity of that fantastic world composed
of glassy rocks, animal plants and stone animals.