Zee

“ On our way back we were met by Zee, who, having found us gone, on her return from the College of Sages, had unfurled her wings and flown in search of us.
Her grand, but to me unalluring, countenance brightened as she beheld me, and, poising herself beside the boat on her large outspread plumes, she said reproachfully to Aph-Lin—“Oh, father, was it right in you to hazard the life of your guest in a vehicle to which he is so unaccustomed? He might, by an incautious movement, fall over the side; and alas; he is not like us, he has no wings. It were death to him to fall. ”

“ The many harbors of the Zuyder Zee are crowded with these craft, especially on Saturday nights, when the boats have all come in for the Sabbaths rest.
It is said that a thousand may sometimes be seen in sight at one time, and the sky-line to the southward seemed like the teeth of a saw with their narrow sails, so numerous were they. There are harbors to leeward from wherever the storm-wind may blow on this beautiful sea, and its so-called dead cities are busy with sea-life, and their spacious harbors thronged with craft. ”

“ Zee pointed to a table by the couch on which I saw the clothes I had worn on quitting the upper world, and which I had exchanged subsequently for the more picturesque garments of the Vril-ya. The young Gy then moved towards the casement and stepped into the balcony, while hastily and wonderingly I donned my own habiliments. When I joined her on the balcony, her face was pale and rigid. Taking me by the hand, she said softly, “See how brightly the art of the Vril-ya has lighted up the world in which they dwell. To-morrow the world will be dark to me.” ”

“ We passed into the deserted streets and along the broad upward road which wound beneath the rocks. Here, where there is neither day nor night, the Silent Hours are unutterably solemn—the vast space illumined by mortal skill is so wholly without the sight and stir of mortal life. Soft as were our footsteps, their sounds vexed the ear, as out of harmony with the universal repose. I was aware in my own mind, though Zee said it not, that she had decided to assist my return to the upper world, and that we were bound towards the place from which I had descended. ”

“ According to the account I received from Zee, who, as an erudite professor of the College of Sages, had studied such matters more diligently than any other member of my host's family, this fluid is capable of being raised and disciplined into the mightiest agency over all forms of matter, animate or inanimate. It can destroy like the flash of lightning ”

“ I could not but be amused at the idea of Zee, who is so fond of protecting others that children call her ‘THE GUARDIAN,’ needing a protector herself against any dangers arising from the audacious admiration of males. Know that our Gy-ei, while unmarried, are accustomed to travel alone among other tribes, to see if they find there some An who may please them more than the Ana they find at home. ”

“ Now, was it possible that he had never been on the surface of the earth, or could he only be referring to communities buried within its entrails?
My host was for some moments silent; his countenance showed a degree of surprise which the people of that race very rarely manifest under any circumstances, howsoever extraordinary. But Zee was more intelligent, and exclaimed, "So you see, my father, that there is truth in the old tradition; there always is truth in every tradition commonly believed in all times and by all tribes." ”

“ She has no strength of wing to uphold you through the air; she has no science wherewith to make a home in the wilderness. Believe that here my friendship speaks, and that my jealousy is silent.”
With these words Zee left me. And recalling those words, I thought no more of succeeding to the throne of the Vril-ya, or of the political, social, and moral reforms I should institute in the capacity of Absolute Sovereign. ”

“ Sneek is the mean.”
CHAPTER IV—THE ZUYDER ZEE WE reached the Zuyder Zee, out of a canal, at Monnikendam, which is a respectably picturesque townlet and the port of embarkation for Marken, the alleged jewel of the Zuyder Zee, the precious isle where the customs and the costumes of a pure age are mingled with the prices of New York for the instruction of tourists. We saw Marken, but only from the mainland, a long, serrated silhouette on the verge. The skipper said that Marken was a side-show and a swindle, and a disgrace to his native country. ”

“ Zuider Zee (i. e. south sea) , a deep inlet of the North Sea, in the Netherlands, which includes the islands of Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, and Ameland, and was formed by irruptions of the North Sea into a lake called Flevo, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, when thousands of people were drowned; is 85 m. ”

“ Most of the songs of this family are rather slight, but the extremest case known to me is that of the black-poll (Dendrœca striata) , whose zee, zee, zee is almost ridiculously faint. You may hear it continually in the higher spruce forests of the White Mountains ”

“ The endiking of low lands against the sea which had been quietly proceeding during the first eleven centuries of the Christian era, received a fresh impetus in the 12th and 13th centuries from the fact that the level of the sea then became higher in relation to that of the land. This fact is illustrated by the broadening of river mouths and estuaries at this time, and the beginning of the formation of the Zuider Zee. A new feature in diking was the construction of dams or sluices across the mouths of rivers, sometimes with important consequences for the villages situated on the spot. ”

“ Now are we towering high over the black edge of the coast in the pinnacles of the slim searchlights which challenge us in front, and move to the right and left of us. We are conscious of our hostility to those below, and rejoice to creep unseen, unnoticed, [Pg 125] across this sentinel barrier. Around us the occasional ropes of brilliant emeralds wander upwards in regularity and silence, and for a rare moment we are conscious of being in the air at night. To our left Zeebrugge flings into the sky a dozen beams of powerful light, fortunately too remote to challenge us. ”

“ Zeelna, traversing in twelve hours only one-fifth of the visible hemisphere, while crossing in the same time 144° on the zodiac—twelve degrees per hour, or our Moon's diameter in two minutes and a half—was left behind by the stars; and fixing what I may call the ocular attention on her, she seemed to stand still while they slowly passed her; thus making their revolution perceptible to sense as it never is on Earth, for lack of a similar standard. ”

“ Roelandszoon Zeachen, (ship Zeehaen) , supposed native of Arnheim made discoverer of Arnheim’s Land, lxxxv Zebu, Spanish colony founded at, lxx Zeehaen, ship, lxxxv Zeemeuw, yacht, destined for the discovery of New Guinea, 43, 47 Zeewijck, wreck, 176 ”

“ Two seas of surpassing splendour: and long lines of heavy purple cloud hang, like ocean islands, in the one of the sky. The other, the true sea, has a strangely opaque appearance—it does not look like water at all. It is this that makes the morning; all else is dark and shrouded. Standing here, upon a corner-stone of this island, one looks from night into day. Just before the sun rises the clouds about become rosy red, and then take fire; but from the moment he has risen they begin to fade back into grey again. All flame himself, he puts all other out. ”

“ Came over, Sina, at the setting moon!
II.
The moon shines round and bright;
She, with her dark-eyed maidens at her side,
Watches the rising tide,
While balmy breathes the starry southern night,
While languid heaves the lazy southern tide;
The rising tide, O Sina, and the setting moon
III.
The night is past, is past and gone,
The moon sinks to the west,
The sea-heart beats opprest,
And Sina's passionate breast
Heaves like the sea, when the pale moon has gone,
Heaves like the passionate sea, Sina, left by the moon alone! ”

“ The Paradou!’
Serge looked out upon it, speechless.
IV
A sea of verdure, in front, to right, to left, everywhere. A sea rolling its surging billows of leaves as far as the horizon, unhindered by house, or screen of wall, or dusty road. A desert, virgin, hallowed sea, displaying its wild sweetness in the innocence of solitude. The sun alone came thither, weltering in the meadows in a sheet of gold, threading the paths with the frolicsome scamper of its beams, letting its fine-spun, flaming locks droop through the trees, sipping from the springs with amber lips that thrilled the water. ”

“ As I lay with my face turned toward the sea, listening in despair to the soft, monotonous lip-lipping of the waves, varied at regular intervals by the long, foaming crash of the swell as it broke and swept up the sands, there came presently in the eastern sky a faint silvery glow, and the full moon stole up from out the glistening water until it shone full and broad, making a burnished path down to the shore at my feet. ”

“ Scarcely, indeed, had I made fast the halyard than I beheld on the very verge of the horizon what seemed to be a vessel. The moment of sunrise, like that of sunset, is peculiarly favorable to distinct vision; and as the pink line of dawn sheeted over the sea, the dark object stood out clear and sharp; but the next moment the glare of brighter day covered sky and water together, and I could no longer see the ship. ”

“ I awoke one morning to hear the bump, bump of the floating pieces against the side of the ship, and I went on deck to see the whole sea covered with them to the horizon. They were none of them large, but they lay so thick that a man might travel far by springing from one to the other. Their dazzling whiteness made the sea seem bluer by contrast, and with a blue sky above, and that glorious Arctic air in one’s nostrils, it was a morning to remember. ”

“ Ocean. She lives apart from the gods in her glorious house vaulted over with great rocks and propped up to heaven all round with silver pillars. Rarely does the daughter of Thaumas, swift-footed Iris, come to her with a message over the sea's wide back. But when strife and quarrel arise among the deathless gods, and when any one of them who live in the house of Olympus lies, then Zeus sends Iris to bring in a golden jug the great oath of the gods from far away, the famous cold water which trickles down from a high and beetling rock. ”

“ Then the shipmen call upon the sons of great Zeus with vows of white lambs, going to the forepart of the prow; but the strong wind and the waves of the sea lay the ship under water, until suddenly these two are seen darting through the air on tawny wings. Forthwith they allay the blasts of the cruel winds and still the waves upon the surface of the white sea: fair signs are they and deliverance from toil. And when the shipmen see them they are glad and have rest from their pain and labour. ”

“ Sometimes we think we can almost trace the airwaves, one behind the other, until the last thin layer is reached, and the glance is lured on as through a crystal, and we are soaring lark-like through the azure fields, the world beneath us lost, as when the swimmer in mid-ocean turns his face from the ship that represents land, and floats away on a blue sea under a blue sky, a solemn silence over all, the heart filled with the trembling delight and awesome majesty of boundless space. ”

“ The west was flushed with red, but a few stars were trembling in the airy dimness of the evening blue over the stern, and in the south was the young moon, a pale curl, but gathering from the clearness of the atmosphere a promise of radiance enough later on to touch the sea with silver under it and fling a gleam of her own upon our soaring sails. ”

“ Our old familiar constellations have sunk beneath the wave and new clusters have taken their place, of equal splendour. Besides, trifles light as air fortunately attract attention. A passing sail, a distant headland, a branch of seaweed, or a floating spar, all contribute to the amusement of the party. ”

“ If one could but arrest the connoisseurs in the fact of looking at them with belief, and, magically introducing the image of a true sea-wave, let it roll up to them through the room,—one massive fathom's height and rood's breadth of brine, passing them by but once,—dividing, Red Sea-like, on right hand and left,—but at least setting close before their eyes, for once in inevitable truth, what a sea-wave really is ”

“ Bent still, the good Lord helping them, the Indian coast to hail.
Rounding the sea-girt Cape, whose crest rose high above the mast;
Rounding L'Agulhas' sandy point, seen from the mast at last;
Keeping all closely to the shore, for fear of surge and tide,
The little bark clung to her course, that cruel coast beside. ”

“ Now Zeus, gatherer of the clouds, aroused the North Wind against our ships with a terrible tempest, and covered land and sea alike with clouds, and down sped night from heaven. Thus the ships were driven headlong, and their sails were torn to shreds by the might of the wind. So we lowered the sails into the hold, in fear of death, but rowed the ships landward apace. There for two nights and two days we lay continually, consuming our hearts with weariness and sorrow. ”

“ The sea today looks almost black: the south-west wind has filled the day with luminous mist; and the phantom of Nevis melts in the vast glow, dissolves utterly.... Once more we are out of sight of land,—in the centre of a blue-black circle of sea. The water-line cuts blackly against the immense light of the horizon,—a huge white glory that flames up very high before it fades and melts into the eternal blue. ”