72 A Day with the Sea. Urchins.

 

was glad of this, for I wanted to follow their movements
more closely than I had lately been able to do on account
of the crowd. I had become deeply interested in them;
as who would not be?
And now a very sad thing was about to “happen.
The sun was certainly getting low, and I was wondering
whether my little friends would return to the cave in the
Bay of Delight. They were swimming about under
water, employing and amusing themselves in one way
and another, when something large and shadowy
appeared above us, and fell down and down towards
us through the clear green water, which, when it came
close, I recognized as the body of a drowned boy.
At first the Urchins were much alarmed, not knowing
him to be.dead, and they scurried off to hide themselves.
But he fell down and down, till at last he was lying
motionless on the bright sand’ at the bottom of the sea
a little way below us, and after a time they. began to
peep out at him and whisper to each other. -
-Was he an Erinnys ? they said; and was he asleep?
But they soon began to guess the truth, for they knew
quite well that Land Urchins cannot live under water
as they themselves do. And Jasper said—~ i

“Not thus, beneath the sea, can mortals dwell ; \
My brothers, this is but the empty shell
Of one, who now has spread his wings of white,
And flown away, far—far beyond our sight.”