inferno of cliffs and precipices. A stone flung by him
as he poised himself on a knife-edge of rock blobbed
with a dull sound in the still water. We climbed down
after this and reached our boat, the sea-cunny bleeding
at his feet. We rowed, the sea-cunny loyal and contemptuous
of protest from the less keen Chittagonian,
all in the dark,
half-way ro u n d
the island, on the
chance of finding
the exit of the
w a t e r s . The
i s l and towered
a bo v e us into
th e starry sky,
a n d e a ch time
the blade of an
oar ploughed the
inky sea it flung
off a cloud o f
p h o s p h o r u s ,
whi ch f loat e d
away like a. jellyfish
AN OUTER BASTION OF TH E ISLAND
on fire. We were all by now fallen under the dominion
of the daemon of the place. The sea-cunny had
no longer any word to say ; and we rowed in silence. For
my part I have never before or since felt so deeply
the truculence of nature. And even now, as I sit
and look out on the stars and the heaving sea, I cannot
shake off the pervading horror of this place. I
5 7 0
seem to have lighted upon the secret home of the
very spirit of evil. They call it Elephant Island, but
that is a name bestowed by a stranger from afar. There
is nothing of the elephant about it at close quarters.
It is purely diabolical, and the whole is a palace of
the devil—a cathedral of wickedness. Every time I
look into the night and see these sinister pinnacles and
revetments outlined dark against the stars, I am assailed
by their awful suggestion. Even the wash of the sea,
so pleasant at other times,' and in other places, is here
of sinister purport, like that within the cave of some
blind, gross being of another world, into whose jaws
life is drawn unresistingly and without hope or power
of escape.
It all comes, no doubt, of the eccentric action of
water on limestone ; but the explanation counts for less
than nothing here. Are not all impressions of nature,
in a material sense, illusions ?
And now think of this infernal interior of the lake
we have found, of this dark cave under its colossal
propylon of rock, hidden away in the heart of this
smiling archipelago. Who would suspect its existence
if he were not told of it ? And if there be such things
in one island of these seas, what may there not be
hidden amongst its thousand fellows ?
V II. T h e H id d e n L a k e
Last night the sea-cunny, untiring in adventure,
sailed away through the night in search of a Sal6n camp,
whose fires shone like pinpoints in the dusk. For it