Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/72

54 searching the quivering gloom, she saw them, all five, faintly lavender, richly violet, lifting occasionally their stiff arms as the water swirled in. On the pure white sand at the bottom of the cavern, strange, transparent, apricot-colored things were putting forth petals like chrysanthemums.

"Sea-anemones," said Garth. "I'm watching the barnacles."

His curly hair swept Joan's cheek as she looked down where he was pointing. The barnacles, from their fastnesses on the rock, were opening their little folding-doors and shooting out wispy, thread-like fingers which opened and closed steadily, like animated bits of thistle-down.

"They're eating their dinner," whispered Garth, "the nice things."

A periwinkle came creeping up past the barnacles, his tiny horns just showing beneath his shell.

"I never knew that they could walk," murmured Joan.

"If I stare into the cavern," said Garth, "in a little while I feel as though I were living down there. Don't you?"