“You’re tired, Gresham,” Black said. “We can talk about this later. I’m going to give you a sedative and I want you to rest.”

Gresham laughed. “See that gull up there? What would you say if it circled three times and landed on the rail beside you?”

Black looked up. The gull sailed in one wide circle, two circles, three—and swooped down toward the rail. Its yellow feet gripped and closed and it perched there turning its head from side to side and looking at Black with eyes that fantastically seemed to him for a moment Gresham’s eyes, as if the blind man in the bird’s dim brain looked out and saw him.

Gresham laughed again.

“You’ve got a notebook on your knee,” he said. “You have no idea how queer you look through a bird’s eyes, Black. All out of focus and strange.”

“Let it go,” Black said in a choked voice. The gull tipped forward and spread its wings, its eyes going blank again with mindless bird-thoughts.

“Yes,” Gresham said. “The shark will do....”

Black sat beside the bunk and watched the sleeping face of the blind man, his own mind in a turmoil. He could not believe or accept Gresham’s story, but in spite of himself he found images slipping through his brain as he saw emotions flicker across the cataleptic face. He saw the green abysses gliding by, he saw the nameless undersea dawn brightening in the depths, felt the great shark’s body bend its banded muscles and drive on and on toward a city of floating spheres that illuminated the dark like lanterns lighted by no human hands.

Suddenly Gresham sat straight up among the blankets. The blood rushed into his face and he said, “Huh!” in a choked, inarticulate voice.

“Gresham?” Black said, laying a hand on his arm. “Are you awake? What is it?”

He was not awake. He did not turn his head or feel the hand or hear the voice. All his faculties were focused on something very far away, deep down in the abysses beneath the boat. He was like a man in a nightmare. His breath came fast now, through bared teeth, and his face convulsed into the lines of a man fighting for his life.

“The dark!” he said thickly. “The dark! Where did the lattices go? What’s wrong? Oh, what’s happening here?” But that 

 Prev. P 11/15 next