“In Salamis, filled with the foaming
Of billows, and murmur of bees,
Old Telamon stayed from his roaming
Long ago, on a throne of the seas.”
Paul repeated the words to himself as he lay on his back in the morning sunlight The raft rocked gently on the water, the planks were hot beneath him, while the rays of the sun dried the salt water on his body, turning him at every moment, he reflected proudly, into the nearer likeness of a native of the coast. The morning was a rhapsody in blue, a blue which burnt across the sky, echoed in the placid sea, and spread in a veil over the distant mountains.
Paul stretched himself luxuriously; this must be the height of human felicity, he thought; what more could a man want? Raising himself on an elbow, he looked down at Adelaide lying beside him, a sleeping caryatid, he thought, with her arms above her head. She opened her eyes and smiled lazily at him, and suddenly he found that he did want many things, and had no words to ask for them. He turned away and stared at the shore, where the bright houses of the port seemed painted against the mountains and scattered bathers on the beach so many spots of pigment As he watched, a figure separated itself from the rest, and climbed a high rock, dived neatly, and reappearing a moment later, struck out towards the raft. Suddenly brave, Paul slipped his hand over Adelaide’s.
“There’s somebody coming,” he said.
“Oh, Paul!” She sat up and rubbed the sun from her eyes; then, looking across the water, “I believe it’s Ben.”
The swimmer was still a long way off, thought Paul . . . and Adelaide’s face . . . so very close to his own . . .
When Benvenuto arrived at the raft he half swung himself on to it and shook the water from his eyes. Then he paused.
“What happy hours a man attend
That hath a cultured female friend,”
he murmured, slipping back unseen into the sea.
THE END