"In none of the elder tongues," said Christopher, "is there much to do with the sea. As you say, the ancients were wise; they had a knowledge of many strange things; but they seldom ventured far from land, and so the sea as we know it was a darkened thing to them. So, knowing nothing of its secrets, they could scarcely agree with you. Bear in mind," said Christopher earnestly, "I am not denying; I only announce a lack of authority in the ancients." "The sea," said Tom Horn in his hushed voice, "has a meaning. It is more than a mass of water, washing around in the hollows of the world." "I grant you that," said Christopher readily. "I grant you that much active principle is in the sea; it holds many vital elements, crystallized or in solution. Soda, for example, is the cinder of sea-plants; and without this friendly alkali we'd many times be brought to a stand. The ocean gives rare and agreeable substances to materia medica, and in time, as we plumb its depths, it will give more." But Tom Horn shook his head at this conception. "I have watched the sea with the sun on it," he said; "and I've watched it running through the night. Hurricanes blow over it and make it leap and rave; but hurricanes die down, and the sea goes on. It is always muttering," said Tom Horn. "I've listened to it, hour after hour; it's always muttering over something it has hidden. But it never tells; it keeps its secrets well." "The moon guides the ocean's tides," said Christopher. "And the wind ruffles or smooths its surface. It does nothing of itself." "That is a common error," said Tom Horn, "and held to by men who have not watched, and seen, and listened. The sea slips around the world in a circle. It touches and knows all things. And inside the great circle there are many smaller ones, all moving the same way." He leaned forward in his chair so that his face was close to Christopher. "The world moves that way, too--does it not?--round and round. And so do the stars, and the moon, and the wind." There was a little pause, and then Tom Horn's hushed voice grew more whisper-like than ever. "Who ever saw a circle begin?" said he. "Did you?" The little apothecary looked perplexed, and regarded his questioner seriously over the lenses of his spectacles. "No one ever did," said Tom Horn, "because they begin outside the world's rim. The circle of your life, now, began ages before you were born, and in the emptiness of space. It grew narrower as it neared the earth, and the day it touched its surface you began to live. And so it went around and around, and so it continues to go around and around; it keeps growing narrower and narrower, as it has done from the first; it gets tighter and tighter about you. And one day it will close, and so disappear, upon a little spot of ground, in a quiet place. And there you will lie." "Thankfully, I hope, and untroubled," said Christopher Dent soberly. "And with the little that's been given me to do well accomplished."