little, and stilled again. Minutes passed, and the immeasurable
heaving recommenced--one, two, three, four ... seven long swells
this time;--and the Gulf smoothed itself once more. Irregularly
the phenomenon continued to repeat itself, each time with heavier
billowing and briefer intervals of quiet--until at last the whole
sea grew restless and shifted color and flickered green;--the
swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon to
shore ran one uninterrupted heaving--one vast green swarming of
snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand. Yet
no single cirrus-speck revealed itself through all the violet
heights: there was no wind!--you might have fancied the sea had
been upheaved from beneath ...

And indeed the fancy of a seismic origin for a windless surge
would not appear in these latitudes to be utterly without
foundation. On the fairest days a southeast breeze may bear you
an odor singular enough to startle you from sleep,--a strong,
sharp smell as of fish-oil; and gazing at the sea you might be
still more startled at the sudden apparition of great oleaginous
patches spreading over the water, sheeting over the swells. That
is, if you had never heard of the mysterious submarine oil-wells,
the volcanic fountains, unexplored, that well up with the eternal
pulsing of the Gulf-Stream ...

But the pleasure-seekers of Last Island knew there must have been
a "great blow" somewhere that day. Still the sea swelled; and a
splendid surf made the evening bath delightful. Then, just at
sundown, a beautiful cloud-bridge grew up and arched the sky with
a single span of cottony pink vapor, that changed and deepened
color with the dying of the iridescent day. And the cloud-bridge