The Trespasser

'They find no fault with me,' he said. 'I suppose they are as fallible

as I, and so don't judge,' he added, as he waded thigh-deep into the

water, thrusting it to hear the mock-angry remonstrance.

'Once more,' he said, and he took the sea in his arms. He swam very

quietly. The water buoyed him up, holding him closely clasped. He swam

towards the white rocks of the headlands; they rose before him like

beautiful buttressed gates, so glistening that he half expected to see

fantail pigeons puffing like white irises in the niches, and white

peacocks with dark green feet stepping down the terraces, trailing a

sheen of silver.

'Helena is right,' he said to himself as he swam, scarcely swimming, but

moving upon the bosom of the tide; 'she is right, it is all enchanted. I

have got into her magic at last. Let us see what it is like.' He determined to visit again his little bay. He swam carefully round the

terraces, whose pale shadows through the swift-spinning emerald facets

of the water seemed merest fancy. Siegmund touched them with his foot;

they were hard, cold, dangerous. He swam carefully. As he made for the

archway, the shadows of the headland chilled the water. There under

water, clamouring in a throng at the base of the submerged walls, were

sea-women with dark locks, and young sea-girls, with soft hair, vividly

green, striving to climb up out of the darkness into the morning, their

hair swirling in abandon. Siegmund was half afraid of their

frantic efforts.

But the tide carried him swiftly through the high gate into the porch.

There was exultance in this sweeping entry. The skin-white, full-fleshed

walls of the archway were dappled with green lights that danced in and

out among themselves. Siegmund was carried along in an invisible

chariot, beneath the jewel-stained walls. The tide swerved, threw him as

he swam against the inward-curving white rock; his elbow met the rock,

and he was sick with pain. He held his breath, trying to get back the

joy and magic. He could not believe that the lovely, smooth side of the

rock, fair as his own side with its ripple of muscles, could have hurt

him thus. He let the water carry him till he might climb out on to the

shingle. There he sat upon a warm boulder, and twisted to look at his

arm. The skin was grazed, not very badly, merely a ragged scarlet patch

no bigger than a carnation petal. The bruise, however, was painful,

especially when, a minute or two later, he bent his arm.