So fiercely bank and beach:
For sea alone would meet your gaze,
Could it o’er endless water-ways
To Madagascar reach!
The Ocean’s wrath to still,
And many a cry was doomed to ascend,
Unheard by wife, or child, or friend,
And known but to God’s will!
A last despairing quest,
And groped and caught and splashed around
To feel if yet support be found,
And sank on Death’s cold breast!
“And . . . and . . . I have forgot the rest.”
“That may be found again by writing for it to Krygsman, your clerk at Natal. He has it,” said Verbrugge.
“Where did he get it?” asked Max.
“Perhaps from your waste-paper-basket. But he certainly has it! Isn’t what follows the legend of the first sin, through which the island that formerly protected the roadstead of Natal sank? The story of Djiva and the two brothers?”
“Yes, that is so. That legend . . . was no legend. It was a parable I made up and which within a couple of centuries will probably become a legend if Krygsman drones out that thing too often. That was the beginning of all mythologies. Djiva is soul, as you know, soul, spirit, or something of the kind. I made it a woman, the indispensable naughty Eve . . .”
“Well, Max, what becomes of our little lady with her beads?” asked Tine.
“The beads were packed away. It was six o’clock, and there on
