Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/71

Rh hits you on the nose, but it doesn't matter. There's plenty of room for both of us, Joan."

She lay down rather cautiously, thrust her head in under the slab very close to Garth, and looked into the water. At first she could see nothing whatever; then, as her eyes grew more used to the sunshot dimness, she began to perceive strange and beautiful things. The sides of the rocks were covered with a glowing broidery of red and orange, very much as though brightly-colored lichens could grow under the sea. A little fish hovered in for a moment at the sea-mouth of the pool, where the sunlight, striking through, made the water clear and lemon-green. As the swell filled the little cavern and sucked out again, Joan saw clumps of bronze-colored weed flat against the rock. When the surge swayed them, their short-fingered tufts twinkled suddenly with wonderful darting lights of purple and blue and iridescent green, which faded and flashed and died.

"Is it true," she said, "that I see a purple starfish?"

"Yes," said Garth softly; "I can see five of them."

Joan would once have said that there couldn't be such things as purple starfish; but,