Silently, through the silence and beauty of the dawn, we made our way back to the house.
As we passed through the laboratory, Mercer glanced out at the empty pool.
“Man came up from the sea,” he said slowly, “and some men went back to it. They were forced back to the teeming source from whence they came, for lack of food. You saw that, Taylor––saw her forebears become amphibians, like the now extinct Dipneusta and Ganoideii, or the still existing Neoceratodus, Polypterus and Amia. Then their lungs became, in effect, gills, and they lost their power of breathing atmospheric air, and could use only air dissolved in water.
“A whole people there beneath the waves that land-man never dreamed of––except, perhaps, the sailors of olden days, with their tales of mermaids, which we are accustomed to laugh at in our wisdom!”
“But why were no bodies ever washed ashore?” I asked. “I would think––”
“You saw why,” interrupted Mercer grimly. “The ocean teems with hungry life. Death is the signal for a feast. It was little more than a miracle that her body came ashore, a miracle due perhaps to the storm which sent the hungry monsters to the greater depths. And even had a body come ashore it would have been buried as that of some unknown, unfortunate human. The differences between these people and ourselves would not be noticeable to a casual observer.
“No, Taylor, we have been party to what was close to a miracle. And we are the only witnesses to it, you and Carson and myself. And”––he sighed deeply––“it is over.”
I did not reply. I was thinking of the girl’s odd gesture, at parting, and I wondered if it were indeed a finished chapter.