"Aye," returned the other in a husky whisper. "Aye, ye bes talkin' now, Tim Leary. Sure, bain't that power o' the glimp o' the eye a mark o' the mermaid? They bewitches a man's heart, does mermaids, an' kills the eternal soul of him! Sure, b'y! Didn't me own great-gran'father, who sailed foreign viyages out o' Witless Bay, clap his own two eyes on to one o' they desperate sea-critters one night he was standin' his trick at the wheel, one day nort' o' Barbados? Sure, b'y! He heared a whisper behind him, like a whisper o' music, and when he turned his head 'round there she was, nat'ral as any girl o' the harbor, a-gleamin' her beautiful, grand eyes at him in the moonshine. An' when he come ashore didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"
"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."
"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the other poor humans, then?"
At that moment the skipper approached.
"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."
The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of the foremast soon after the ship had struck the rocks, and fully eight hours before Black Dennis Nolan had released her. The second mate, who had carried her up and lashed her there, had been flung to his death by the whipping of the mast a moment after he had made the last loop fast about her blanketed form. She had been drenched and chilled by the flying spume and the spray that burst upward and outward from the foot of the cliff. The wind had snatched the breath from her lips, deafened her, blinded her, and driven the cold to her very bones. The swaying and leaping of the spar had at last jarred and wrenched her to a state of insensibility.
She spoke only three times during the journey.
"I would have died if I had been left there a little longer. You were brave to save me as you did. What is your name?"
"Aye, 'twas a terrible place for ye," replied the skipper. "I bes Dennis Nolan, skipper o' Chance Along; an' now I bes takin' ye to my granny, Mother Nolan, an' a grand, warm house. Ye'll have Father McQueen's own bed, for he bes away till June, an' a fire in the chimley all day."
Her only answer was to gaze at him with a look of calm, faint interest for a moment and then close her eyes. Ten minutes later she spoke again.