
The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness.

Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls.

The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed.


The air was cool, moist, and clear and presently even the sound of the water was still. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.
