as not easy to find, but after
much perilous scrambling, I at length found myself on the boulder which
had so lately been the pedestal of that Radiance; and, in another
moment, I had dived into the moon-path and was swimming toward the
mysterious golden door.

Before me the rocks opened in a deep narrow crevasse, a long rift,
evidently slashing back into the cliff, beneath the road on which I had
been treading. I could see the moonlit water vanishing into a sort of
gleaming lane between the vast overhanging walls. In a few moments I was
near the entrance, but, as yet, I could not touch bottom with my feet,
and so I swam on into the giant portal, into a twilight which was still
luminous with reflections, and to which my eyes readily accustomed
themselves.

Presently I felt my feet rest lightly on firm sand, and, still shoulder
deep in the water, I walked on another yard or two--to be brought to a
sudden stop. There she was coming toward me, breast high in that watery
tunnel! The moon, continuing its serene ascension, lit her up with a
sudden beam. O! shape of bloom and glory!

For a moment we both stood looking at each other, as if transfixed. Then
she gave a frightened cry, and put her hands up to her bosom; as she did
so, a stream of something bright--like gold pieces--fell from her mouth,
and two like streams from her opened hands. Then, as quick as light, she
had darted past me, and dived into the moon-path beyond. She must have
swam under the water a long way, for when I saw her dark head rise again
in the glimmering path, it was at a distance of many yards.

I had no thought of following her, but stood in a dream among the watery
gleams and echoes.

So, once in a lifetime, for a few fortunate ones, all the various magics
of the earth, all the mysterious hints and promises of her loveliness
that make the heart overflow with a prophetic sense of some supernatural
happiness on the brink of coming to pass, combine in one supreme shape
of beauty, given to us by divine ordering, on the starlit summit of one
immortal hour.

For me had come that hour of wonder; for me out of that tropic sea, into
whose flawless deeps my eyes had so often gone adream, had risen the
creature of miracle.

O! shape of moonlit marble! O! holiness of this night of moon and stars
and sea!

CHAPTER IV

_In Which I Meet a Very Strange Individual._

Yes! I was in love. Yet I hope, and think, that the reader will not
resent this