The Wine-Dark Sea Read Free Page A

this when the popular feeling was so morally narrow and so uniform as, commonly, among the Hellenes. In the third place, it was undoubtedly the mysterious business about the island being bad because very old. A perceptive traveller in Hellas comes to think of the Parthenon as quite modern; to become more and more absorbed by what came earlier. Soon, if truly perceptive, he is searching seriously for centaurs.
    All the same, Grigg quite surprised himself by what he actually did. Walking along the hard road in the heat of the next mid-afternoon, with almost no one else so foolish as to be about at all, apart from the usual discontented coach trip, he observed a small boat with an outboard motor. She was attached, bow on, to a ring. He could borrow her, visit the island, be back almost within an hour, and pay then, if anyone relevant had appeared. He was sure that it was now or never. He was able to untie the painter almost at his leisure, while the coach-party stared at him, welcoming the familiar activity and the familiar-looking man who was doing it. The engine started popping at the first pull. A miracle, thought Grigg, who had experience of outboards: fate is with me. In a matter of hardly more than seconds in all, his hand was on the helm and he was off.
    To anyone that loves the seas of Britain or the great sands of Belgium and Holland, there is something faintly repulsive about the tideless Mediterranean and Aegean, which on a calm day tend to be at once stagnant and a little uncanny. Dense weed often clogs the shallows, uncleaned by ebb and flow; and one speculates upon fathom five and millennia many of unshifting spoil. While he was still near the shore, Grigg’s enjoyment was mitigated also by the smell, much more noticeable than from the land; but soon the pleasure of being afloat at all worked on him, and within minutes there was nothing in his heart but the sun, the breeze, the parting of the water at the prow of the boat, and the island ahead. After a spell, he did half look over his shoulder for a possible gesticulating figure on the quay. There was no one. Even the coach-party was re-embarked and poised to go elsewhere. And soon the lights that sparkled on the miniature waves were like downland flowers in spring.
    Upon a closer view, the building on the island’s back proved to be merely the central section, or keep, of saffron-coloured fortifications that included the whole area. In view of what the man at the tourist office had said, they had presumably been erected by the Turks, but one never quite knew whether there had not been contributions from the Venetians, or the Normans, or the Bulgars, or the Cyclops, or, at different times, from them all. Some of the present structures seemed far gone in decay, but all of them were covered with clusters and swags of large, brightly coloured flowers, so that the total effect was quite dazzling, especially when seen across a few hundred yards of radiant blue sea. Grigg perceived that the island was simply a rock; a dark brown, or reddish brown rock, which stood out everywhere quite distinctly from the lighter hue of the stonework.
    Then he saw that the sunlight was glinting on glass in at least some of the windows, small and deepset though they were. To his right, moreover, an ornamental balustrade, hardly a part of the fortress, descended the sloping back of the island until it ended almost at sea-level. Grigg thought that the rock might continue to slope in the same gentle degree under the water, so that it would be as well to go cautiously and to keep well out; but it seemed, none the less, the likeliest end of the island for a landing. He rounded the island in this way without incident, and saw that on the far side there was a square stone harbour, though void alike of craft and citizens. He cut off his noisy engine and drifted in. He marvelled more than ever at the number, the size, and the gorgeousness of the flowers. Already, still out at sea, he could even