The Green Mouse Part 41

How he managed to get safely to earth he never knew. "Either I'm crazy,"

he shouted aloud, "or there's a--a mermaid out there, and I'm going to find out before they chase me to the funny house!"

There was a fat tub of a boat at his landing; he reached the sh.o.r.e in a series of long, distracted leaps, sprang aboard, cast off, thrust both oars deep into the water, and fairly hurled the boat forward, so that it alternately skipped, wallowed, scuttered, and scrambled, like a hen overboard.

"This is terrible," he groaned. "If I _didn't_ see what I think I saw, I'll eat my hat; if I did see what I'm sure I saw, I'm madder than the hatter who made it!"

Nearer and nearer, heard by him distinctly above the frantic splas.h.i.+ng of his oars, her Lorelei song sounded perilously sweet and clear.

"Oh, bunch!" he moaned; "it's horribly like the real thing; and here I come headlong, as they do in the story books----"

He caught a crab that landed him in a graceful parabola in the bow, where he lay biting at the air to recover his breath. Then his boat's nose plowed into the sandy neck of land; he clambered to his feet, jumped out, and ran headlong into the belt of trees which screened the singer. Speed and gait recalled the effortless grace of the kangaroo; when he encountered logs and gullies he rose grandly, sailing into s.p.a.ce, landing with a series of soft bounces, which presently brought him to the other side of the woods.

And there, what he beheld, what he heard, almost paralyzed him. Weak- kneed, he pa.s.sed a trembling hand over his incredulous eyes; with the courage of despair, he feebly pinched himself. Then for sixty sickening seconds he closed his eyes and pressed both hands over his ears. But when he took his hands away and opened his terrified eyes, the exquisitely seductive melody, wind blown from the water, thrilled him in every fiber; his wild gaze fell upon a distant, glittering shape--white-armed, golden- haired, fish-tailed, slender body glittering with silvery scales.

The low rippling wash of the tide across the pebbly sh.o.r.e was in his ears; the salt wind was in his throat. He saw the sun flash on golden comb and mirror, as her snowy fingers caressed the splendid ma.s.ses of her hair; her song stole sweetly seaward as the wind veered.

A terrible calm descended upon him.

"This is interesting," he said aloud.

A sickening wave of terror swept him, but he straightened up, squaring his shoulders.

"I may as well face the fact," he said, "that I, Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport, L.I., and recently in my right mind, am now, this very moment, looking at a--a mermaid in Long Island Sound!"

He shuddered; but he was sheer pluck all through. Teeth might chatter, knees smite together, marrow turn cold; nothing on earth or Long Island could entirely stampede Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point.

His clutch on his self-control in any real crisis never slipped; his mental steering-gear never gave way. Again his pallid lips moved in speech:

"The--thing--to--do," he said very slowly and deliberately, "is to swim out and--and touch it. If it dissolves into nothing I'll probably feel better----"

He began to remove coat, collar, and shoes, forcing himself to talk calmly all the while.

"The thing to do," he went on dully, "is to swim over there and get a look at it. Of course, it isn't really there. As for drowning--it really doesn't matter.... In the midst of life we are in Long Island.... And, if it _is_ there--I c-c-can c-capture it for the B-B-Bronx----"

Reason tottered; it revived, however, as he plunged into the s. w.[A] of Oyster Bay and struck out, silent as a sea otter for the s.h.i.+mmering shape on the ruddy rocks.

[Footnote A: Sparkling Waters or Sacred Waters.]

Flavilla was rehearsing with all her might; her white throat swelled with the music she poured forth to the sky and sea; her pretty fingers played with the folds of burnished hair; her gilded hand-mirror flashed, she gently beat time with her tail.

So thoroughly, so earnestly, did she enter into the spirit of the siren she was representing that, at moments, she almost wished some fisherman might come into view--just to see whether he'd really go overboard after her.

However, audacious as her vagrant thoughts might be, she was entirely unprepared to see a human head, made sleek by sea water, emerge from the floating weeds almost at her feet.

"Goodness," she said faintly, and attempted to rise. But her fish tail fettered her.

"Are you real!" gasped Kingsbury.

"Y-yes.... Are you?"

"Great James!" he half shouted, half sobbed, "are you _human?_"

"V-very. Are _you?_"

He clutched at the weedy rock and dragged himself up. For a moment he lay breathing fast, water dripping from his soaked clothing. Once he feebly touched the glittering fish tail that lay on the rock beside him. It quivered, but needle and thread had been at work there; he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again she was looking about for a likely place to launch herself into the bay; in fact, she had already started to glide toward the water; the sc.r.a.ping of the scales aroused him, and he sat up.

"I heard singing," he said dreamily, "and I climbed a tree and saw--you!

Do you blame me for trying to corroborate a thing like _you?_"

"You thought I was a _real_ one?"

"I thought that I thought I saw a real one."

She looked at him hopefully.

"Tell me, _did_ my singing compel you to swim out here?"

"I don't know what compelled me."

"But--you _were_ compelled?"

"I--it seems so----"

"O-h!" Flushed, excited, laughing, she clasped her hands under her chin and gazed at him.

"To think," she said softly, "that you believed me to be a real siren, and that my beauty and my singing actually did lure you to my rock! Isn't it exciting?"

He looked at her, then turned red:

"Yes, it is," he said.

Hands still clasped together tightly beneath her rounded chin, she surveyed him with intense interest. He was at a disadvantage; the sleek, half-drowned appearance which a man has who emerges from a swim does not exhibit him at his best.

But he had a deeper interest for Flavilla; her melody and loveliness had actually lured him across the water to the peril of her rocks; this human being, this man creature, seemed to be, in a sense, hers.

"Please fix your hair," she said, handing him her comb and mirror.

"My hair?"

"Certainly. I want to look at you."

He thought her request rather extraordinary, but he sat up and with the aid of the mirror, sc.r.a.ped away at his wet hair, parting it in the middle and combing it deftly into two gay little Mercury wings. Then, fis.h.i.+ng in the soaked pockets of his knickerbockers, he produced a pair of smart pince-nez, which he put on, and then gazed up at her.

"Oh!" she said, with a quick, indrawn breath, "you _are_ attractive!"

At that he turned becomingly scarlet.