Part of the cliffs rose almost sheer; some of the multi-colored crags overhung the water, shutting out the sun, so the effect was of wild grandeur. I had seen many coves somewhat like it on Malta's rock-bound coasts, but had missed this one somehow, the most impressive of all.
A rough path, part of which appeared hewn out of the rock, encircled the basin. We followed this until a steep crag barred our way.
"We've got to swim for it now," Sophia told me, flushed and sweating from the exercise and lovely with happiness. "When we're ready, the most proper way would be for me to leave you here, go alone, and then call you."
"Don't leave me."
"What have you under your breeches?"
She perceived the odd sound of this as soon as it came forth, but she gave no sign of embarrassment and trusted me to make courteous reply.
"Nothing but me."
"Do you mind getting them wet?"
"Not in the least."
"Well, I brought an old pair of our groom's breeches for you to put on when you get there. Take off your shirt and brogues and put them in my bag, also the lunch, and your valuables. Leave your haversack here. I've got to strip down to my shift and slashed-off pantalettes. My aunt in Bodmin wouldn't think that very modest, but I think it's all right. When we've got everything we need in the bag, we can ferry it over on a board. Even ff it falls off, it won't sink with the air in it, or let in any water. There are plenty of boards around here—I see one close by the path."
I saw it also and two more. They were hand-hewn, four feet long and two feet wide—very handy for the purpose. Obviously more than one swimmer had employed them to convey small articles and bundles across a water gap.
"Then we'll get ready," she went on. At once she went half out of sight in a cleft in the rock.
I caught only one clear glimpse of her before she slipped into the water, and it would take not a gentleman, only a clod, not to catch his breath. Suspended by a band on each side, her shift was cut below the round of her shoulders and across the swell of her breasts. No doubt it was the kind she wore at balls to permit a low-cut bodice, often the strings tucked away not to mar her partner's view of her glossy shoulders; but she could have worn a more modest kind on today's adventure. The white cloth enhanced the dark glow of her flesh. As she laved, she did not shrink from the crystal clarity of the water. Indeed no crystal I had ever seen had its illuminating quality; it emphasized every tint of color and grace of movement. I made haste to put in her oilskin bag my shirt, silver watch, flint-and-tinder which no sailor respectful of the elements ever goes without, and my packet of lunch; then clamped it watertight and balanced it on my board. The latter was easy to steer with one hand, and I needed only my feet for paddling, so when I came up to her, I took her hand.
A little way around the side of the crag, she stopped and tread water.
"You see the dark shadow on the limestone beginning about three feet down?" she asked.
"Of course."
"It's the mouth of a cave, but its floor rises steeply, and within fifteen feet comes up above water. All the rest of the cave is dry as a barn."
Such are the vagaries of the human mind that I thought of the beaver houses on the ponds at home, whose entrances are likewise water-sealed, but whose interiors are snug and warm.
"It's easy to go in empty handed," Sophia went on. "Do you think you'll have trouble taking in the bag?"
"I don't think so."
"Then I'll lead the way."
She dived, kicked once, and disappeared. Close in her wake, I carried down the bag and swam head first into the arched aperture in the rock. The sudden loss of the brilliant Mediterranean sunlight all but blinded me, but I had entered no realm of total darkness, and after a stroke or two I became aware of diffused light and then the ghostly form of Sophia emerging from the water above me. It shoaled swiftly with plenty of headroom. I waded out of a luminous pool about twenty feet in diameter, lying in the lower end of a dim chamber in the rock. Entering had been no feat at all. Anyone who could hold his breath for a few seconds could do so with ease.
I had already guessed that the gap in the limestone had once been the outlet of an underground watercourse. Except that this lay some feet below sea level, the cave was no doubt similar to numerous others in the rock-bound coasts I knew. However, it was very strangely lighted, partly by starlike fissures high aloft, but mainly by the luminous waters over the cavern mouth. These cast a glimmer into the cave as soft as candlelight and no stronger than that poured down from a rounding moon, yet having a fairy quality such as imaginative people associate with fata morgana and will-o'-the-wisp. "I know now the secret you share with Calypso," I told my beautiful companion.
"I thought you'd guess it when I brought you here. Of course this is her cave. Where else could she have held Ulysses in enchantment for seven years?"
She was more beautiful than ever—my Calypso—in the dim, blue-tinted luminance; and my pulse leaped at our utter solitude. Still my wonder at her bringing me here lived on. I did not find a cheap explanation of a kind dear to riffraff. Whatever she gave me would be Beauty's gift to a chosen one; whatever she yielded to me it would be my fair winning in her sight. At present she held me her companion in a happy adventure.
"Did you come on it by accident?" I asked.
"I might have. If I had seen this cove, I would have been tempted to go swimming. Actually, an old Maltese gardener who had fought against the French told me where it was."
She opened the bag, took out her peasant's dress and a dry shift and disappeared in the darkness beyond. In her absence I donned her groom's breeches and my shirt. In a few minutes she called to ask me to light a candle she had brought. The small, clean-cut blue-and-yellow flame burned punily close to the entrance m the water-screened sunlight, but further on it made a brave showing, so thick the dark grew. Near where Sophia waited for me, it showed me the charred sticks of a cooking fire, a copper pot, and a pile of clean-looking sheepskins.
"A hermit's retreat?" I suggested.
"It probably has been, now and again. Its last use that I know of was during the French occupation a year ago. The Maltese people revolted and sent to Lord Nelson for help. We couldn't land troops there at first, but we managed to smuggle in gun powder and guns to the revolutionists. The powder was in watertight canisters, and one of the main caches was in this cave."
"Then a good many people know about it,"
"Very few, I believe. Those that do know it keep the secret in case they revolt against us and need it again. No one goes swimming in the cove, and the few fishing smacks that come in don't find the opening."
As she spoke my Light fell on some carvings on a near-by wall. They were in low relief and clear enough to recognize. They showed the figure of a man with a high cap, a square-cut beard, and a long robe offering a bowl to a slender woman with narrow waist, shapely breasts and hips, and a long skirt with several circular bands. Fish swam about her feet, and a crescent moon hung over head. Below was an inscription in some strange-looking language.
"What do you think it is?" Sophia asked.
"I'd guess a king offering wine to a goddess."
"That's a good guess. I copied some of the letters and compared them with those in one of Papa's books on ancient history. They were a little like Hebrew letters and more like Assyrian. I think they're Phoenician. If so, the cave's old enough to be Calypso's."