“Such flowers, too, as grew in snow-white vases I had never seen before!
“Then music began to float through the hall, slow and solemn at first, then quicker and quicker, and all at once the marble floor was filled with fairies—the loveliest elves imagination could paint—all mingling and mixing in a mazy dance with waving arms and floating hair, and all keeping time to the music. The mermaids, too, left the couches of pearl on which they had been reclining, and were carried through and through the air, the ends of their bodies covered with long floating drapery of green and crimson. Then some of these strange creatures brought me fruit and wine, and bade me eat and drink. I fain would have spoken, but all my attempts were in vain.
“Suddenly our ship’s bell rang out clear enough, ting-ting, ting-ting, ting-ting, ting. It was seven bells, and all the mermaids and fairies melted away before me, the music died away as if drowned, the surging of water returned to my ears, and next moment my head was above the sea, and I could see the stars shining down, and looking so large and near and clear, as they always do in those northern seas. In a minute I had caught the chains, and swung myself on board. I went to bed. In the morning I awoke, and laughed to myself as I thought of my dream, but my laughing was changed to wonder when I found every stitch of my clothing wringing with salt water, and when the spectioneer told me that he had seen me with his own eyes come on deck at two bells and go below at seven. Then I told him and the rest the story, and we all agreed that it was something far more than a dream.”
Effie sat looking into the fire for some time in silence; then she said,—
“Were there no mermen in that lovely hall, and were they very noble-looking and gallant, like my dear papa in uniform?”
“No,” said old Grindlay, “I don’t think mermen would have been admitted into such a place any more than the great sea-serpent would.”
“Why not?”
“Because, missie, they are such ugly old customers. I’ve never seen one, that I know of, but a mate that sailed with me said he had, and that it was uglier than the faces we sometimes see on door-knockers, and uglier than any baboon that ever grinned and gibbered in an African forest.”
“How terrible!” said Effie.
“Oh, I should like to meet one of those!” said Leonard. “And I’ve been told that the mermaids wouldn’t live anywhere near where these mermen are, and that instead of dwelling down in coral caves and marble halls at the bottom of the green sea, where the sunbeams flash by day, and the moon shines all the way down at night, these mermen live at the bottom of the darkest, deepest pits of the ocean, where there is nothing but mud and slime, and where the young sea-serpents and the devil-fish grow. No, the beautiful mermaids I don’t think ever do any harm, but the mermen are bad—bad!”