“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.