s singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance
unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with
eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and
still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before
me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone
house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed
upon the cliff by the waterside.

All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had
descended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; the
white dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in the
thick arbours.

I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright and
burning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlasting
shadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of
keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry woke
many, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness.

How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers as
thick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vague
fashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to this
same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life?
I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath the
reflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadow
might be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from all
land its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, and
these were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the little
arches.

So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirring
groves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villa
on the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin,
the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orange
trees, with their unripe fruit upon them.

But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking the
sea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green,
unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossing
above the yellow sands.

Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approaching
and the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were now
regarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet.

"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man so
softly?"

Turning, I looked in the face of one how l