Island of Mermaids by Iris Danbury Page A

opportunity to see Carla or her mother.
    Kent was waiting at the landing stage with a small motorboat. ‘ I thought we ’ d be able to circle the whole island by motor-boat, ’ he said, ‘ although we have to take a rowboat inside the Grotto. There are always plenty of those waiting for customers just off the shore. ’
    A short distance from the harbour, Kent pointed out the Scala Fenicia, the old Phoenician steps, leading up to Anacapri.
    ‘ Before the road came, this was the only way up from the Marina to Anacapri, ’ he said. ‘ Seven hundred and seventy - seven steps, so I believe, and your baggage loaded on to a donkey .’
    The lad in charge of the motor-boat grinned and pointed up the hillside, making a zigzag gesture with his hands.
    ‘ Is it still possible to climb the steps now? ’ Althea asked.
    ‘P ossible, but not very sensible, ’ was Kent ’ s opinion. ‘ Certainly not alone. So few people use the path now that if you were hurt, you ’ d lie there shouting for help until you were blue in the face. ’
    A small frown crossed Althea ’ s face. Why must he so often refer to that single occasion when she had tripped over a boulder in his garden?
    But now there were other interesting points to see. The tiny beach called the Baths of Tiberius, the favourite bathing place, it was said, of the old Roman Emperor who built himself a dozen villas on the island because he could not decide which beautiful aspect he liked best.
    Outside the cavern of the Blue Grotto several small rowing - boats rocked lazily waiting for customers, as Kent had predicted. As soon as the boatmen caught sight of the motorboat, they raced towards it, surrounding it like a school of playful porpoises.
    Kent chose the soundest-looking boat and helped Althea and her father to transfer. ‘ You must sit right down in the bottom of the boat, ’ he warned them. ‘ We have to duck our heads as we go in. The opening has a low roof. ’
    The boatman, walnut-faced with tan and wrinkles, pulled strongly, then shipped the oars, lay almost fiat on his back and with the aid of chains fastened to the walls, propelled the boat swiftly into the Grotto.
    Althea caught her breath in a gasp of sheer amazement. It was so different from the way she had imagined it. She had conjured up a deep sapphire-blue pool, but this piece of water enclosed within rocky walls, the roof arched like a cathedral, was a lake of dancing aquamarines, glinting ceaselessly in the sunlight that struck at an angle through the aperture, reflecting fantastically from the walls, even on the faces of one ’ s companions. She plunged her hand into the cool water and held within her fingers a small cluster of sparkling gems.
    ‘ Oh, it ’ s enchanting !’ she exclaimed as the boatman rowed in a circle, carefully skirting the glistening rock walls. His oars stirred up even more rippling nuances of translucent vivid colour, changing shape with every moment of time.
    When the boatman took the party out through the narrow aperture, the sea appeared almost dull after the blinding luminosity of the refracted water display in the Grotto.
    ‘ I can hardly believe it exists, ’ murmured Althea as Kent helped her back into the motor-boat.
    ‘ It was famous in Roman times and before then, but for centuries no one bothered about it until near the beginning of the last century when someone rediscovered it and thought it an attraction. A painter, I think he was. Whatever his pictures were like, we owe him a kind word. ’
    The motor-boat puttered along leisurely and Althea saw the seaward view of some of the places to which she had walked. Jagged precipices drifted by, dark red or heliotrope, pale grey or mottled white, with sometimes a vivid splash of green or orange. These multi-coloured rocks scored by wind and seas, sometimes split open by landslides to display hidden surfaces, gave no hint that above and beyond them lay fertile vineyards or trim pink-washed villas.
    The boat rounded