"'There are beings above us,' she said, 'winged beings, that talk with us sometimes; but nothing below. Are they sorrowful as you are? Are their brows all heavy with sadness like yours? Why are they unhappy?'
"I wept and moaned.
"'They have not your pure eyes; they cannot hear your voice. They have sinned.'
"She glided toward me. I felt my gray hairs dropping one by one; my heavy heart grew light; my groans softened to sighs.
"A shape came suddenly between us.
"I knew the long green locks, and the glossy neck. It was Tethys who spoke. 'Man,' she said, 'you were made one of us, not one of these. Go back to your domain, for you are mortal. Resume dominion over the fish, or, striving to win more, lose all!'
"I turned my face seaward bitterly. I looked back once; the blue eyes were gleaming—oh, so tenderly!—and I could not go. I muttered an execration at my bitter fate. Straightway the sky rocked, the sea rose, the pale star vanished. I had spoken a wicked word.
"I was consigned to Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools. In vain I struggled in his watery arms; the swift current bore me circling away, and finally whirled me with frightful velocity. My feet were shaken asunder, my integument softened, my brain reeled. I was passed from eddy to eddy; I became drunken with emotion; I suffered all the tortures of the lost. A waterspout lifted me from the clutch of the sea, and deposited me upon the dry land, close to the home of my infancy.
"I have passed the weary hours of my penance in arranging the memoirs which follow. Science has again wooed me with her allurements; the stars continue their correspondence. I have not despaired of the great secret of immortality; and though these hairs are few and white, I shall be rejuvenated in the tranquil depths of the water, and reassert for ages my rightful dominion over the fish!"
I was in doubt whether to laugh or wonder when the Ancient Mariner concluded; but I was relieved from passing judgment upon his article by the unceremonious entrance of a tall, lithe, gray-eyed person, who wore gold seals and carried a thick walking-stick. The naturalist appeared to be bent on diving through the floor, and swimming away through the cellar; but he caught the stern, keen eye of the stranger and cowered. The tall man lifted his cane, and struck the manuscript out of his Highness's hands; he demolished the microscope at a blow, and flung the geological hammer out of the window.