Thalassa

“ Far beneath them they could hear the solemn roar of the sea dashing against the cliffs, but there was no sound in the closed chamber. Its stillness and hush seemed intensified by the clamour of the sea, as though calamity were brooding in the darkness within.
“Robert, Robert!” The high pitch of Mrs. Pendleton’s voice shattered the quietude like the startling clang of an unexpected bell. “Knock again, Thalassa, more loudly, very loudly,” she cried, in the shrill accents of tightened nerves.
Thalassa approached the door again, but recoiled swiftly. “God A’mighty!” ”

“ The division, commenced good-humouredly enough, soon developed the elements of a gamble between Robert Turold and Remington. They forgot Thalassa’s existence as they argued and disputed over the allotment of certain stones. The foot or so of flat rock became the circumference of their thoughts, ambitions, and passions—their world for the time being. In that sordid drama of greed Thalassa seemed to have comported himself with greater dignity than his two superiors by birth and education. ”

“ Thalassa jerked his head towards the gleam falling through the partly open surgery door. “He wants you.” He walked ahead and pushed the door open. Austin Turold followed, but started back as he looked within. Then he entered, his eyes dwelling on the shadowy outline on the couch in the corner.
“What has happened at Flint House, Ravenshaw? Now—to-night, I mean.” He spoke shakily. “There’s a story abroad of Thalassa having been seen carrying a figure through the churchtown and entering your house. Has somebody fallen off the cliffs—been drowned? Is that it?” ”

“ Thalassa’s victory had ended with bringing him down, and she soon had cause to regret her temerity in marrying him. Thalassa repaid the indignity of capture by a course of treatment which had long since subdued his wife to a state of perpetual fear of him—a fear which deepened into speechless shaking horror when he stormed out at her in one of his black rages. Some women would have taken to drink, others to religion. Mrs. Thalassa sought consolation in two packs of diminutive and dog-eared cards. ”

“ How did ye get away from the island?”
Ravenshaw raised his head to reply, then stood mute, in a listening attitude. Outside the window the sound of footsteps crunched the gravel walk, and approached the house. Thalassa heard and listened too. The crunching ceased, and there was a knock at the door. Thalassa looked questioningly at Ravenshaw, who nodded in the direction of the door.
“Open it,” he said. Thalassa hesitated. His eyes sought the couch. “Yes, in here,” said Ravenshaw understandingly. “We shall want witnesses.” ”

“ Thalassa had been infected by the diamond fever like so many more. Like other young men he wanted plenty of money for women and grog—what else, he asked, could a man get for money that was worth having? In those days he was a sailor before the mast, lacking the capital for such delights. So he deserted his timber tramp when she touched at Port Elizabeth, and set out for the diamond fields with another runaway—the ship’s cook, who had an ambition to have his meals cooked for him for the rest of his life, instead of cooking meals for other people. ”

“ Behind them towered the cliffs, with Flint House hanging crazily on the summit far above where they stood. The eye of Charles ranged along the shore to the spot where he had said good-bye to Sisily not so very long ago, then returned to rest doubtingly on Thalassa. The old man stood with his hand resting on a giant rock, his dark eyes fixed on the rim of the waste of grey water where a weak declining sun hung irresolutely, as though fearing the inevitable plunge. ”

“ Do you suppose he could climb up here from outside?”
“It might have been his spirit,” murmured the other.
“Spirits don’t cross the ocean, and their footsteps don’t clatter,” responded Thalassa coldly. “The house is all locked up, and there is no other house near by. Come, what are you afraid of? You are worrying and upsetting yourself over nothing. I’ll bring you up your supper, and some whisky with it. And the sooner you leave this cursed hole of a place, the better it will be.” ”

“ Thalassa broke the silence like a cracked bell, shattering her husband’s meditations, and causing the dog to spring to his feet. Thalassa looked at her angrily. She was making mysterious motions with her hands, as if expostulating with some phantom of her thoughts, muttering and shaking her head rapidly. Her husband stared across in silence for a moment.
“By God! she doesn’t improve with age,” he growled; then, louder: “What’s the matter with you? ”

“ Thalassa?” asked Dr. Ravenshaw in some surprise.
“Yes. I gathered from what I overheard you say to Thalassa that you have been attending her.”
“I have been attending her since Mr. Turold’s death.”
“She is in a strange condition,” observed Barrant reflectively. “I was questioning her the other night, but I could get nothing out of her. She seems almost imbecile.”
“She is not a woman of strong mind, and she is now suffering from a severe shock. She should be looked after or taken away from here altogether, but her husband seems quite indifferent.” ”

“ Brimsdown contrive it. For the time being he would pursue his investigations and keep his own counsel.
The sound of an opening door and a shadow athwart the threshold disturbed his meditations. He looked up, and was confronted by the spectacle of Thalassa advancing into the room with his eyes fixed upon him.
“Well, Thalassa,” he said, “what do you want?”
“To ask you something,” was the response. “It’s this. It’s every man for himself—now that he’s gone.” ”

“ While they were eating breakfast Andrew and another man carried down the trunks and stowed them away, and by nine o’clock all the luggage was on board. Meanwhile the children were impatient to be off. But much as they longed to be at their summer home they would never have left Oldport without first seeing Thalassa. Thalassa was the adopted daughter of the innkeeper, and was always called Lassie. The children were very much interested in her, for she had a strange history. It was this:
One night, about thirteen years before, there was a great storm. ”

“ He engaged a vehicle at the hotel and drove over to Flint House in the afternoon. The impression of that visit remained. Flint House, rising from the basalt summit of the headland like a granite vault, its windows coldly glistening down on the frothy green gloom of the Atlantic far beneath, the country trap and lean black horse at the flapping gate, the undertaker’s man (dissolute parasite of austere Death) slinking out of the house, and Thalassa waiting at the open door for him to approach—all these things were engraved on Mr. Brimsdown’s mind, never to be forgotten. ”

“ I set out across the moors in the darkness. It was raining, and I walked fast until Flint House loomed out of the blackness before me. Then I paused to consider my course of action. I was about to thwart a madman with a fixed idea, in a lonely house where he had in his service another man who could be depended on to make common cause against me when he knew the truth. I was not afraid of Robert Turold, but I was of Thalassa. I knew he was strong enough to hurl me through the window into the sea. ”

“ I thought it all out on the way to the hotel with my aunt. I determined to go back and see my father that night. I felt that I could not sleep until I knew the whole truth. I left the dinner table as soon as I could, and hurried down to the station to catch the half-past seven wagonette to St. Fair.
“I got out of the wagonette at the cross-roads, and walked over the moors. When I reached Flint House I knocked at the door, and Thalassa let me in. I told him I wanted to see my father, and he said he would wait downstairs and take me back across the moors when I came down. ”

“ Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus. [205] (The) power to whom Thalassa is entrusted is masculo-feminine, who traces back the hissing (water) from the twelve mouths of the twelve pipes and after preparing distributes it. (This power) is small and reduces the boisterous restraining rising (of the sea) and seals up the ways of her paths, so that nothing should declare war or suffer change. The Typhonic daughter of this (power) is the faithful guard of all sorts of waters. Her name is Chorzar. Ignorance calls her Poseidôn, after whose likeness came Glaucus, Melicertes, Iö, [206] Nebroë. ”

“ Was the Nautilus being drawn into this gulf at the moment our boat was going to leave its sides? We knew that at the tide the pent-up waters between the islands of Ferroe and Loffoden rush with irresistible violence, forming a whirlpool from which no vessel ever escapes. From every point of the horizon enormous waves were meeting, forming a gulf justly called the "Navel of the Ocean," whose power of attraction extends to a distance of twelve miles. There, not only vessels, but whales, are sacrificed, as well as white bears from the northern regions. ”

“ This is a reach of ocean-travel which for boisterousness and discomfort can be said to rival the English Channel. As the coast of Tasmania is approached, a tall light-house, one hundred and forty feet in height, first attracts the attention,—designating the mouth of the Tamar River. The land formed a lee for the steamer as we approached it, giving us smooth water at last, whereupon the strained muscles of the body gradually relaxed, and it was delightful to be once more upon an even keel. At sea the human body is constantly struggling in the vain effort to preserve its equilibrium. ”

“ That excitement lasted during the tedious journey in overdrive and during the long approach to planetary landing distance after the Ecology Bureau ship was back in normal space in the Elektra system. When it went into atmosphere on Thalassia and its repulsors droned above the illimitable waters of Thalassia's ocean, Brett watched with fascinated eyes. They had a twenty-thousand-mile reach in which to build up to mountainous heights. ”

“ The channel was crooked and puzzling, leading through a labyrinth of mangrove islets, around which the current of the Gulf Stream was running like a sluice; we repeatedly got aground, when we would jump overboard and push off. So we worked all day before we were clear of the keys and outside among the reefs, which extend three or four miles beyond. Waiting again for daylight, we threaded our way through them, and with a light breeze from the eastward steered south, thankful to feel again the pulsating motion of the ocean. ”

“ But now the light began to fade, so that the [93] island could no longer be seen. Darkness fell apace; and, as it did so, the wind sunk and died quite away. Hereupon, within two miles of the shore, we anchored the ship.
Now, at this time, and, indeed, from a good while previous, we heard from the land a booming sound, which at first we took to be nothing but the clamour of breakers; but Thalass told us it was the voice of a great waterfall from the lofty cliff. ”

“ Further to the west, and north from the great continent of Tharsis, we beheld the immense oval-shaped land of Thaumasia containing in its centre the celebrated "Lake of the Sun," a circular body of water not less than 500 miles in diameter, with dozens of great canals running away from it like the spokes of a wheel in every direction, thus connecting it with the ocean which surrounds it on the south and east, and with the still larger canals that encircle it toward the north and west. ”

“ The whale-boat passed the outlet of the lagoon. North by east I steered.
"Parts of the Indian Ocean are almost free of storms. The atoll was apparently in one of those parts. I soon passed out of it. Three storms blew me about, I lost my dead-reckoning, I lost count of the days. Between the storms I lashed the tiller amidships, double-reefed the sail and slept as I needed sleep. Through the storms I bailed furiously, the whale-boat riding at a sea-anchor of oars and sails. ”

“ I helped him to hale her down the narrow strip of shore. The breakers foamed and gnashed like things possessed.
And now began the island to quake and to be shaken to pieces: the cliffs split in flaws and fissures, with stupendous sounds; the roar that came to us from the woodland bespoke a deluge of fire, over which, no doubt, the volcan reared high its infernal plume.
“Quickly! Quickly!” cried Thalass, when the boat was gotten down. “Get ’e in! Get ’e in! Her good fine boat! No sink! no break! I made ’e, fine! beautiful!” ”

“ Coming up to it, we climbed, by jagged ridges, creepers and rockweed, to the top, and there stood to view the country.
’Twas a charming panorama—champaign, woody, and rocky in grateful alternation, or confused and intermingled as in some silent conflict; but of man, or man’s habitation, not a trace! I asked Thalass whether this part of the island was really uninhabited; he answered after his broken manner:
“This side only him spirit, great, big; look.” (Here he made a grimace that gave me a scare, so like it was to that dreadful visage) , “and him little spirit, sing ”

“ Previously, however, a vast extent of ocean has to be traversed, which is accomplished in an incredibly short space of time, during which period much suffering from sea-sickness is to be expected, and many are compelled to keep to their cabins, creeping only upon deck occasionally to cheer the heart with a distant glimpse of land, as Malta and Gibraltar have appeared to view, and as speedily vanished from sight, leaving, like the false mirage, no trace behind. ”

“ The ocean always flows into the sea. The current through the strait of Gibraltar is always inward. Many great rivers contribute to the blue waters of the great sea. There is no known outlet. Why does not the Mediterranean run over and fill the Sahara desert, which is considerably below the sea-level? Scientists have tried to figure this out, and the only tangible theory is that the bottom of the Mediterranean leaks badly in some places, and that the water finds its way by subterranean channels back to the ocean. ”