The white yacht sailed gracefully over the dark blue waters of the
Mediterranean. She seemed to be moving in response to an inner
impulse. This was the sixth day of the cruise, and that morning she
had left the harbour at Messina to sail in a southerly course round
the eastern shores of Sicily. The sea was calm, and the bows cut so
smoothly into the water, that the dividing line between water and
metal was as sharp as if it had been ruled with a diamond point on
the surface of a mirror.
Diana stood in the bows, her head tossed back and the breeze playing
with her curls, the white linen dress clinging to her and outlining
breast and leg. From a distance, she might have been taken for the
figure of that marble Nike which, in times of old, had been placed at
the nose of the Greek warship and had flown forward to victory. But
no one was about on this particular morning. She had ship and sea
and sunlight to herself, so far as any personal observation was
concerned, for the weatherbeaten helmsman and the two Low German
sailors keeping the watch had no time to contemplate young ladies at
so early an hour, even though, if we except old Mary, Diana was the
only woman aboard.
And Diana knew that she was unobserved. She, like her companions,
had started off in a spirit of adventure, and had sought nothing but
enjoyment out of the voyage, the sprightly talk, the long silences,
the laughter. But, alone of all the pleasant company, Diana knew and
loved the sea, was under the spell of the dancing waters. She had
felt this as soon as she stepped on board at Genoa, and now she was
completely won to its moods and enchantments, in storm or calm,
radiant at morn, tranquil at noon-tide, lively at sunset, or a
murmuring mystery at night. She felt at home among the hawsers and
tackle, the life-belts and ropes and masts, the shining brasses, all
the paraphernalia of seafaring life. Untiringly she questioned the
crew as to this, that, and the other detail she did not understand.
She was learning to be an adept in reckoning how many knots they were
making, in reading the charts, in calculating the mid pressure, and
was becoming weather wise. Yet all this seemed to her no more than a
game played upon the surface of the waters. Dark forces were at work
within the abysses of her soul. She was lured within the magic
circle of this fluid element, to plumb her own depths, dumbly,
unseeingly, and to gauge her strength in the eyes of her friends and
under the blue dome of the starry night. When such moods of
self-contemplation assailed her, she forgot all about logarithms and
maps, and allowed herself to penetrate into the mysteries of her own
nature. Nowhere were such meditations more fruitful than when she
was surrounded by the sea.
As Diana stood in the bows this morning she seemed to form part of
the elements around her. The sunshine sparkled from the water as
from the surface of a mirror, it was split up into a thousand facets
on the ripples, as if the mighty fist of a god had dealt a blow upon
the moving mass from which, at the moment of impact, a cascade of
light had generated. But the impression upon Diana was different.
The radiance and the sea were for her a world divided against itself
and seeking reunion through strife; as night fell, the radiance was
absorbed into the sea; when day dawned, it arose once more from the
bosom of the waters; and this descent and resurrection was reproduced
within herself as if she too were part of the living cosmos. The
sensation of fettered freedom was strong upon her as the yacht glided
through the Mediterranean, for here, and here alone, did night and
morning become visible phenomena, superseding the habits of a
lifetime, and giving concrete substance to the passage of the hours.
The stars, which served to guide the vessel on her course, appeared
more pregnant with mystery than those which shone over the houses of
a town or even over the trees of a forest. At such moments, Diana
became blind to externals, for she yielded herself up entirely to a
kind of mystical contemplation. She saw neither birds nor fishes,
nor the distant mountains coming slowly into view to starboard, nor
the flattened cone shimmering white against the blue sky. Her
thoughts were turned inward, while the breeze played fresh and cool
upon her skin, the murmur of waters caressed her ears, the brine and
the brilliance smote upon her eyes. Oblivious to all exterior
happenings, she was only aware of palpitating sensation.
It was for her one of those rare moments of inner solitude which seem
absolutely unattainable amid the growing tumult and complication of
modern life. Of one thing alone did she become aware as the moments
passed and she stood awake while her friends lay wrapped in slumber:
that the sky was cloudless over a glittering sea.