“STAR O’ BOSTON”
HE was a very elderly merman, and he had lived in one cave under the Caribbean Sea for seventy submarine years.
“It’s hard,” he said, “cruel hard at my time of life to be turned out after all the rent I’ve paid. If I’d only gone to a Building Society I should have bought the blessed place ten times over by this time.”
He wept a senile tear, which added one drop to the waters of the Caribbean; then he drew his black seaweed covering round him, put out a phosphorescent lamp, and went to sleep. The morrow would see him and his merdaughter turned away for ever from the home of their fathers. And all about a paltry matter of two years’ rent.
“San Francisco” slept peacefully despite the pending eviction. His coverlet of living seaweed rose and fell regularly; once he turned and smiled sadly and uttered the name of his dead merwife. “Alas! my fair ‘Moonflower,’” he said; “it is well-nigh over with us now, for ‘Lord Aberdeen’ refuses me tenancy of the old cavern any longer, owing to my natural and increasing disinclination to pay rent. For how can I pay what I myself lack? His only alternative offer is that he have our little ‘Star o’ Boston’ to wife; and she with a mergirl’s unwisdom loves elsewhere, her affections being wholly fixed on the penniless but personable merboy ‘Theodore H. Jackson.’”
From these dreamy utterances of the venerable merman you will learn certain interesting facts. First, it becomes apparent that the merpeople are faced with like problems and plagued by emotions similar to those within human experience; while secondly, as to the matter of nomenclature, the submarine system differs widely from any other. Every merchild is in fact named after a sunken ship; and as the merfolks are not a numerous race nor yet a prolific, maritime disaster sufficient for the purpose occurs annually, and merbabies receive their names in order. Sometimes the wrecks are in excess of the sea-children, then the names of the ill-fated vessels are preserved until those are born who will bear them.
“Star o’ Boston” sat and watched her father sleeping his last sleep in the old home. Her hair was the colour of the red-brown seaweed torn from the rocks in times of storm; her eyes were aqua-marine and reflected the cool, green, eternal twilight of the deep. She was fair to see even for a mermaid, and mystery shared her face with beauty. She drew her wonderful hair over her bosom, murmured the name of “Theodore H. Jackson,” and sighed. Love and duty struggled in her heart; she swayed her golden tail idly and drew conventional designs on the sand with the delicate coral-red fins at the end of it. Little fishes swam about her and rubbed themselves lovingly against her fair body; an octopus, who served the purposes of a chandelier, stretched down three or four of his arms and stroked her; a hermit-crab sat upon her shoulder, and there was a pathos in his black, beady eyes as they poked out of his head on stalks and looked at his mistress. Thus her pets—the poor dumb creatures of the Caribbean—showed their humble sympathy; but they could not help “Star o’ Boston” to a decision. She thought of “Lord Aberdeen” and shivered. He was a wealthy sea-owner, and lived in a cave of pink coral gloriously illumined by electricity stolen from a cable. He was old and ugly; he had been married three times and divorced twice. He had lost an eye in a fight with a sword-fish, which he was torturing from a mere love of cruelty. He habitually used the vilest language, and his temper was soured by the sea-snails which are the mosquitoes of the ocean, and cannot be kept out of a house. Many a bald-headed merman has been driven mad by them.
“Star o’ Boston” pictured her fair person in the grasp of this marine satyr, and pressed her little pink hands over her face to shut out the hideous scene. Then she imagined her father limping away from the old home to return no more.
At the same moment a merpage in mother-o’-pearl buttons brought a note from “Lord Aberdeen.” It was written in verse, which he constantly employed with indifferent success, and in the effusion his lordship made a last appeal, and reminded “Star o’ Boston” that the offer would not be renewed.
The mergirl dropped the oyster-shell on which the letter was written from her hand, then with a gliding and almost snake-like motion swam out of the cavern. She designed to consult “Anna Bailey,” a vivacious but shrewd merwidow who knew life and who usually wore the blue coat, with gold braid and brass buttons, of a dead sea-captain. This she did, by the way, from motives of vanity, not delicacy, for the merpeople have never eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and are clean of mind as the sea in which they live is clean. Of course there are exceptions amongst them. “Lord Aberdeen,” for example, was a notorious libertine, with the morals of a porpoise.
“Marry him,” said “Anna Bailey.” “You take my advice. He cannot live long. And afterwards you’ll be among the wealthiest in the sea and able to marry again where your heart suggests. There he is. Mark my words: he’s nearly run his course. Blessed if he hasn’t got a face like a dog-fish! But what does that matter? You needn’t look at him.”
“Lord Aberdeen” rolled by in a huge conch shell drawn by two sharks. His wicked little eyes glittered and he waved a pearl-laden hand to “Star o’ Boston.” Hardly had he disappeared when “Theodore H. Jackson” came along, swimming thoughtfully. He was a god-like merman, mighty of size, with hair as crisp and emerald green as sea-endive, with a fine forehead, a straight nose and ruby eyes, of a colour like to the red sea-anemones.
“Come, ‘Star o’ Boston,’ my own little green-eyed love,” he said. “Leave talking with this worldly widow and follow me and take the air, for there is nothing like a whiff of the strange, pure fluid of the air-breathers at times of sorrow and anxiety.”
He put his Titan arm round her, and they swam away to a little coral island in the Caribbean—one of those uprising islets not known of men and not marked in the charts of ships until some vessel has perchance found it in the dark, and gone down.
Even so it was now; and as the merman and his maid approached along the dim-lit floor of the ocean to where the coral island swelled like a mountain through it, they saw, beside the great achievement of a million generations of coral insects, a lesser object lying unsightly, black and alone.
“It is a new monster. Let us go speak with it,” said “Star o’ Boston,” who feared nothing but “Lord Aberdeen.”
“Nay, golden-tail, ’tis a human wreck! Of such are the ships that sail the face of the sea. This is Fate, and we are the first to find it, save the fishes. Heaven grant there is bullion aboard, then all may yet be well.”
“‘OLD TOM RUM,’ READ OUT ‘STAR O’ BOSTON’”
It will be news to the reader that the submarine currency depends on nautical mishaps. Their coinage is silver and gold. It explains a point which often puzzles quite well-informed people. Why do the Marine Treasure Recovery Companies never recover anything but old cannons and similar rubbish? Because the merfolks take the money and use it for their own purposes.
“Star o’ Boston” likewise hoped that she and her lover might chance upon some bullion.
“I’ll catch a torpedo fish,” said “Theodore H. Jackson,” “then we’ll burst open the ship’s safe and see.”
But there was no bullion apparently. The vessel proved to be only a little coasting schooner called “Flying Fish.” She was laden with cocoanuts, and as the merman broke open the imprisoned bags, the nuts rushed up to the surface of the sea, like balloons. Then “Star o’ Boston” found a dead sailor with a big black beard, clasping a bottle. He had broken into the spirit locker as the ship went down, but had not found time to drown his death agony with alcohol, for the bottle was apparently unopened.
“Old Tom Rum,” read out “Star o’ Boston.” “What’s that?”
“A drink of the Upper People. We will carry it with us. It may perhaps serve to cheer the desolation of your parent.”
“Theodore H. Jackson” drove off the great grey shark that glimmered sulkily at him out of wolfish eyes; then approached the dead sailor and wrenched the bottle from his grasp.
“Now I come to think of it, I have heard ‘Lord Aberdeen’ speak of this same rum,” declared “Star o’ Boston.” “He told my father that once, long ago, he became possessed of a bottle and that it was like glorious fire in a merman’s veins.”
“By Neptune! then this liquor may prove as valuable as bullion after all—in fact more so. Money won’t buy rum as a rule, excepting on dry land. He shall pay for this.”
Clutching her treasure, “Star o’ Boston” swam back as fast as her fins would carry her.
“I believe,” she said, “that it will be possible to make any bargain I like with him.”
“Then don’t let it go too cheaply. Let him pay heavily for his luxuries. He wants you much; I only hope we may find he wants the rum more.”
“There are plenty of mermaids, but only one bottle of rum that we know of. I swam all through the sunken ship and drove the fishes from the dead men, and a drowned woman with a baby in her arms. There is no rum left there. Air-breathers must love the liquid also, for they had all rushed to drink before their drowning. Only this one poor wretch had no time. Hence our happiness now.”
“I will come with you, my green-eyes, for the rascal may prove too much for you.”
So “Theodore H. Jackson” supported his love and together they entered the pink coral abode of “Lord Aberdeen.”
That old scamp’s black eyes glittered strangely as he saw the mermaid, but when he observed what she carried with her, his excitement was terrific and burst all bounds.
“Great Serpent! Rum, as I live!” he screamed.
But for the paucity of opportunities his lordship had long since drunk himself to death. His spirit was willing, but alcohol proved too rare a thing. He remembered rum in the past; he was getting old; and he felt that the treasure displayed before him now was worth half his fortune.
“Rum it is,” said “Star o’ Boston,” “the last bottle left from a wreck. The air-breathers drank all the rest before they were drowned. I thought you’d like to see the bottle.”
“Ay, mergirl of the crimson fins,—and more than the bottle; this must be mine!”
“Not so, ‘Lord Aberdeen,’ it goes to cheer my dear father, ‘San Francisco,’ in his desolation. He much wants this warm, delicious stuff to strengthen his sore heart. Remember, to-morrow he and I are homeless.”
“Circumstances alter cases,” said “Lord Aberdeen.” “Rum is a luxury, and you are not justified in giving your parent luxuries in his present financial position.”
“Nevertheless, he will drink this bottle,” said “Star o’ Boston.” “Every luscious drop will go to cheer his failing spirit.”
“Sit down,” replied the other. “This is a matter which cannot be settled in a moment. Recline on yonder velvet sea-moss and listen. I am willing to offer reasonable terms for that bottle.”
“’Tis the seller’s place to dictate the terms,” said “Theodore H. Jackson.”
“Well, perhaps so. At least let us be reasonable. Not that I am myself particularly anxious to buy the stuff,” answered the old merman, growing cautious. Nevertheless his mouth watered as he looked at the squat, four-sided bottle; he passed his hands nervously over his round bald head and licked his lips in spite of himself.
“Then we need talk no more, for my terms are high. But I will not abate them. You must first undertake to let my father dwell in his cave for the remainder of his life; and you must next give to me rent free another cave suitable to a young couple beginning life—a four-caverned cave handsomely furnished. And I don’t want it more than twenty fathoms deep either.”
“Quite right; it’s very important in the case of merbabies that they have ample light, with occasional visits to the sea surface for air,” declared “Theodore H. Jackson.”
“All this for one bottle of rum?” asked “Lord Aberdeen” indignantly.
“A thing is worth what it will fetch. Now I come to think of it, I shall want six strings of good orient pearls and fifty pounds in English money as well,” replied “Star o’ Boston,” with admirable coolness.
“Death and the Kraaken!”
“And—and—I shall also want——”
“Done on the last bargain!” screamed “Lord Aberdeen.” He knew that the longer he waited the worse the position would become from his point of view.
“Very well; ‘Theodore H. Jackson’ is our witness. You are going to give me a nice new home and let my dear father stop on in his old one. Then six strings of good pearls and fifty pounds in English money. I, in my turn, shall yield up to you this beautiful bottle of rum. I may say that my dear ruby-eyed merboy here and myself design to marry at no distant date. A little memento on that occasion will increase our regard for you considerably.”
“I’ll see about that when the time comes. Now we will adjourn to my solicitor’s office. I shall demand that this bottle of rum be placed in a safe position before I go further. It makes my blood run cold to see the careless way you hold it.”
Thus did prosperity and unlooked-for happiness crown the last days of “San Francisco,” and brighten the wedded life of “Star o’ Boston” and her merhusband. But, unfortunately for himself, “Lord Aberdeen” came badly out of the transaction after all. He made good his promises, acquired the bottle of rum, and reached that supreme moment when he opened it to have his first nautilus-shell full. Then a strange thing transpired, for though the bottle was labelled “Rum” in large letters, its contents resembled neither rum nor any other liquor. There was only a piece of crumpled paper inside it with words written thereon.
“Lord Aberdeen” gazed blankly at the scrawl, then gave full play to his vile and varied vocabulary.
“‘Flying Fish’ struck on unknown rock or wreck. Going down fast. God have mercy upon us! John Ladywell, Master. (Wife, child, and six hands aboard.)”
Three merjudges tried the action brought against “Star o’ Boston,” and the defendant won her case and costs. It was argued, you see, that a corked bottle labelled “Rum” might reasonably be supposed to contain that liquid. The bargain had been carried out in good faith. “In fact,” said the President of the Tribunal, “‘Caveat emptor’ sums up the position. ‘Lord Aberdeen’ has been unfortunate and is the victim of chance; but it cannot be considered or justly argued that any criminal attempt was made to obtain from him money or property under false pretences. As to the real contents of the rum bottle, it would appear that one John Ladywell, finding his ship going down under him, and knowing that death lay hidden in the deep water and the grey sharks which live beneath it, conceived the idea of recording the sudden end which he saw was now to fall upon himself, his wife, child, and the six seamen of the ‘Flying Fish.’ Had the bottle not gone down with him, clenched to his breast in his last agony, it might have floated away and reached some shore whereon the Upper People congregate. But it sank instead. Hence a natural and unfortunate confusion.”
So that is the end of this mer-story, and I shall only add that “Star o’ Boston” and “Theodore H. Jackson” lived mighty happily ever afterwards, though “Lord Aberdeen” sent no wedding present. Anon a merbaby was born to them, and they called her “Flying Fish” in memory of a great experience. Their narrative is perhaps interesting from some points of view, for it shows that deep-sea researches are as yet quite incomplete, so far at least as the Caribbean is concerned; and it also indicates that, assert what people may to the contrary, fiction is still frequently stranger than fact.