Then I stared at Bigley, who had doubled back his long legs, as he watched the boat, whose sails seemed to be coming nearer now, and then I sank back in my former attitude, to gaze at the cliffs and the soft blue sky flecked with silvery gauzy clouds.
Then one of the big grey gulls fixed my attention, and I lay staring at it hard, and watching its movements, as I wondered why it was that it should keep flying to and fro, for nothing apparently, turning itself so easily by a movement of the tail, and curving round and round without an effort.
That gull completely fascinated me.

Sometimes it floated softly so near that I could plainly see its clear ringed eye and the colour of its beak, the soft white of its head and under parts, the delicate grey of its back, and the black tips of its wings, which formed soft bends that sustained the great bird with the slightest exertion.

For now and then it beat the air a little, then the wings remained motionless a minute at a time, and the secret of flying seemed to me to be to float about in that clear transparent air, just as a fish did in the sea.
It was very wonderful to watch it, feeling so dreamy and restful the while.

The gull seemed to have fixed its eyes on me, and to know that I was noting all its graceful evolutions, and I felt that it was flying and floating and gliding to and fro, and round and round, now up, now down, on purpose to show off its powers to me, for it never occurred to me that the bird was waiting till my eyes were closed to make a pounce down upon the big basket and help itself to the prawns.
No, it all seemed done for my special benefit, and lulled by the lapping of the sea, and with the fanning motion of the gull's wings having a curiously drowsy effect, I lay there watching--watching, till I seemed to be able to float with the gull, and to be gliding onward and onward through space, up and down, up and down, in a soft billowy, heaving movement, with the blue sky above me, the green cliff-side draped with oak and ivy below, and all about me, and pervading me and sustaining me as the sea did when I swam, there was the soft pure air.
Was I a gull or myself?
I did not know, only that I seemed to be floating deliciously on with wide-spread invisible wings, and that there was no such thing as the earth and shore, over which I laboriously plodded, for me.
It was one soft dreamy ecstasy, such as comes to the weary sleeping in the summer breeze out in the open air.

Now and then I seemed to hear the wild softened harshness of the gull's cry, then all was still again, and I was floating on and on, wishing nothing, wanting nothing, only to go on, when all at once a huge roc-like bird seemed to sweep over between me and the sunshine, to grasp me as Sindbad was seized, and raise me up.
But this roc spoke and cried harshly: "Quick! Wake up! You have been to sleep." "Sleep ?" I said, rousing myself.