were already crowding out through the gap in the sea-wall, every keel a running line of blue-gold fire. Among the half-dozen more which now put out, Archer found himself in the bow of Peter's roomy skiff. "Let me row," Hippolyte had begged. So the youngster pulled out ably, while Peter sat in the stern. Liquid gold dripped from the oars; fan-shaped clouds of blue-gold smoke swept astern with each pull; and to Archer, in the bow, seeing the dim shining of the oarblades, the bright arrowhead of ripples that spread from the cut-water behind him, it seemed that they must be rowing forward into the lights of a great town. So strong was the delusion that he turned his head, and was surprised to find only the looming of the sea-wall as the boat slipped through, the blackness of the ocean outside, the running lines of golden fire under the other keels.
Their small flotilla moved somewhere to the southeast, hugging the shore under the cliffs, skirting the bunts of a weir or two, rugged blacknesses picked out with lapping phosphorus round the foot of the poles. A
