The Mermaid: A Love Tale

by L. Dougall

The sea-maid turned about, and her face flashed suddenly upon him, bright in the moonlight. She put out a glistening arm, perhaps in human feebleness to ward him off, perhaps, in the strength of some unknown means of defence, to warn him that at his peril he approached her.

Caius, reckless of everything, grasped the white wrist, and, stopping his motion, knowing he could not lie mermaid-fashion with head reared in the water, he turned on his back to float, still holding the small hand in his. He held it, and retained his consciousness long enough to know from that time forth that the hand had actually been in his—a living, struggling hand, not cold, but warm. He felt, too, in that wonderful power which we have in extreme moments of noting detail, that the hand had a ring upon it—it was the left hand—and he thought it was a plain gold ring, but it did not occur to him to think of a wedding-ring. Then he knew that this dear hand that he had captured was working him woe, for by it he was drawn beneath the water.

Even then he did not let go, but, still holding the hand, struck out to regain the surface in one of those wild struggles to which inexpert swimmers resort when they feel the deep receiving them into itself.

It would have been better for him if he had let go, for in that vehement struggle he felt the evidence of the sea-maid's power. He remembered—his last thought as he lost consciousness—that with the fishy nature is sometimes given the power to stun an enemy by an electric shock. Some shock came upon him with force, as if some cold metal had struck him on the head. As his brain grew dull he heard the water gurgling over him.

How long he remained stunned he did not know. He felt the water rushing about his head again; he felt that he had been drowned, and he knew, too—in that foolish way in which the half-awakened brain knows the supposed certainties of dreams—that the white hand he had essayed to hold had grasped his beard firmly under his chin, and that thus holding his head above the surface of the water, she was towing him away to unknown regions.

Then he seemed to know nothing again; and again he opened his eyes, to find himself lying on a beach in the moonlight, and the sea-maid's face was bending over his. He saw it distinctly, all tender human solicitude written on the moonlit lineaments. As his eyes opened more her face receded. She was gone, and he gazed vacantly at the sky; then, realizing his consciousness more clearly, he sat up suddenly to see where she had gone.

It seemed to him that, like a kind enchantress, she had transformed herself to break his passion. Yes, he saw her, as he had so often curiously longed to see her, moving over the dry shore—she was going back to her sea. But it was a strange, monstrous thing he saw. From her gleaming neck down to the ground was dank, shapeless form. So a walrus or huge seal might appear, could it totter about erect upon low, fin-like feet. There was no grace of shape, no tapering tail, no shiny scales, only an appearance of horrid quivering on the skin, that here and there seemed glossy in the moonlight.

He saw her make her way toilsomely, awkwardly over the shingle of the beach; and when she reached the shining water, it was at first so shallow that she seemed to wade in it like a land-animal, then, when the water was deep enough to rise up well around her, she turned to him once more a quick glance over her shoulder. Such relief came with the sight of her face, after this monstrous vision, that he saw the face flash on him as a sword might flash out of darkness when light catches its blade. Then she was gone, and he saw the form of her head in the water while she swam swiftly across the silver track of the moonbeams and out into the darkness beyond.

Caius looked around him with senses still drowsy and head aching sorely. He was in no fairy region that might be the home of mermaids, but on the bit of beach from which he had launched himself into the water. His coat and hat lay near him, and just above the spot where he lay was the rude epitaph of baby Day, carved by his own boyish hand so long ago.

Caius put his hand to his head, and found it badly bruised on one side. His heart was bruised, too, partly by the sight of the monstrous body of the lovely sea-child, partly by the fresh experience of his own weakness and incapacity.