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By Root 14252 0

winter storms when the glass was falling steeply. The waters of the pool darkened appreciably, curdled, and then became phosphorescent. It was Clea who first noticed. ‘Look’ she cried with delight, crushing her heels down in the shallows to watch the twinkling prickling light spark from them. ‘Phosphorus!’ Balthazar started saying something learned about the organism which causes this spectacle but unheeding we plunged side by side and ranged down into the water, transformed into figures of flame, the sparks flashing from the tips of our fingers and toes with the glitter of static electricity. A swimmer seen underwater looks like an early picture of the fall of Lucifer, literally on fire. So bright was the electrical crackle that we could not help wondering how it was that we were not scorched by it. So we played, glittering like comets, among the quiet mariners who sat, watching us perhaps in their thoughts, faintly echoing the twitching of the tide in then-can vas sacks.

‘The cloud’s lifting already’ cried Balthazar as I surfaced at last for air. Soon even the fugitive phosphorescence would

dwindle and vanish. For some reason or other he had climbed into the stern of the cutter, perhaps to gain height and more easily watch the thunderstorm over the city. I rested my forearms on the gunwale and took my breath. He had unwrapped the old harpoon gun of Narouz and was holding it negligently on his knee. Clea surfaced with a swish of delight and pausing just lon g enough to cry: ‘The fire is so beautiful’ doubled her lithe body back and ducked downward again.

‘What are you doing with that?’ I asked idly.

‘Seeing how it works.’

He had in fact pushed the harpoon to rest in the barrel. It had locked the spring. ‘It’s cocked’ I said. ‘Have a care.’

‘Yes, I’m going to release it.’

Then Balthazar leaned forward and uttered the only serious remark he had made all that day. ‘You know’ he said, ‘I think you had better take her with you. I have a feeling you won’t be coming back to Alexandria. Take Clea with you!’

And then, before I could reply, the accident happened. He was fumbling with the gun as he spoke. It slipped from between his fingers and fell with a crash, the barrel striking the gunwale six inches from my face. As I reared back in alarm I heard the sudden cobra-like hiss of the compressor and the leaden twang of the trigger-release. The harpoon whistled into the water beside me rustling its lon g green line behind it. ‘For Christ’s sake’ I said. Balthazar had turned white with alarm and vexation. His half-muttered apologies and expressions of horrid amazement were eloquent. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ I had heard the slight snick of steel settling into a target, somewhere down there in the pool. We stayed frozen for a second for something else had occurred simultaneously to our minds. As I saw his lips starting to shape the word ‘Clea’ I felt a sudden darkness descending on my spirit

— a darkness which lifted and trembled at the edges; and a rushing like the sough of giant wings. I had already turned before he uttered the word. I crashed back into the water, now following the long green thread with all the suspense of Ariadne; and to it added the weight of slowness which only heartsick apprehension brings. I knew in my mind that I was swimming vigorously —

yet it seemed like one of those slow-motion films where human actions, delayed by the camera, are drawn unctuously out to

infinity, spooled out like toffee. How many light-years would it take to reach the end of that thread? What would I find at the end of it? Down I went, and down, in the dwindling phosphor-escence, into the deep shadowed coolness of the pool. At the far end, by the wreck, I distinguished a convulsive, coiling movement, and dimly recognized the form of Clea. She seemed intently busy upon some childish underwater game of the kind we so often played together. She was tugging at something, her feet braced against the woodwork of the wreck, tugging and relaxing her body. Though the green thread led to her I felt a wave of relief — for perhaps she