They have a sly, four-legged creature on land, all dressed in fur, and sporting a fine, thick tail, and they say that when this Madame Puss wants to catch a bird that is wheeling in the air, she will manage to first catch its eye. Then the little creature will not be able to look away, but will wheel and circle, and circle and wheel, all the time coming nearer, until, if no one frightens Madame Puss away, she will keep her yellow eye fixed on the eye that she has caught, until the bird flies close to her and is caught.
This is called "charming a bird." And the truth must be that poor birdie, after catching sight of that great, shining eye, does not see Madame Puss herself, but only the bright eye, and being unable to look away, flies nearer and nearer the strange, glittering light, until Madame Puss makes a spring, and all is over.
Just so, it is said, the sailors cannot look away from the fair, wonderful creatures tossing their rich hair, beckoning wildly, singing and singing with a sweetness that is not natural or earthly, until, what with the beauty and luring, and voices of honey, the poor sailormen are close against the rocks, and do not seem to know that they are charmed or harmed when the waters close softly over them.
I do not know whether I have ever seen a mermaid or not. But when I took that dangerous voyage up into the storm circle, I saw strange shapes that I never saw before, and heard sounds that were new to my ear. Two or three times I thought I saw streaming hair, and white faces seemed to rise and ride atop of the foaming billows.
But when one is very much excited, will not imagination produce almost any kind of an object that happens to come into the mind? Ah, I am afraid so. Still, there are both Folks and fishes that believe in the mermaids and their songs, and what am I that I should dare dispute them!
Yet—let me whisper—I have heard that Folks who do not know so very much, will tell about "goblins," "spooks," and "catch-ums," and whenever there is talk about the mermaids and the sirens, I think of those Folks who believe in creatures that "never were."
But it would not do to talk in my watery home as if I had no belief in mermaids, because, you see, as most fishes have never been with Folks, and learned a thing or two from them, they do not know any better than to believe in these sweet, dangerous creatures.
So, now, here came Dolphy, with flapping fins, wild eye, and his story of a mermaid's cave. Then a party was made up to go and see the rare and amazing place.