Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 16

Some made for the lifeboat, others for pieces of floating timber. The storm still continued with increasing fury. The sky was black as pitch, and the waves the size of mountains. Planks, hencoops, and other fragments of the wreck were floating about in all directions. Most of the crew, if not all, must have been swallowed up by the waves, for, as I looked around me, I saw no one. As for myself, I kept afloat on a cask of grog, and thus I was left to the mercy of the winds and waves. Up one wave, down another, still I held on to my cask of grog, out of which every now and then I'd take a drop, just to keep out the cold; then, replacing the bung, remounted my cask, and was contented with whatever direction the waves chose to toss me. The lightning flashed and the thunder growled around me.

It was for all the world like being inside an immense big drum, and Davy Jones drumming outside. As I was being dashed to and fro by the merciless billows, I thought I heard, mingled with the dying tones of the thunder, the sound of a harp and singing. Could it be fancy? I listened again. No. I was quite sure this time my ears did not deceive me. The notes grew more and more clear, the voice more and more distinct. Yet, who could it be? There was no land near for hundreds of miles. It could be no mortal harper that touched those chords. I looked around me in wonderment, but saw nothing. At length I was carried to the top of a tremendous wave, and as I was sliding down the other side of it astride my cask of grog, I perceived coming towards me from the opposite wave a female form, beautiful as Venus, and naked to the waist.

Good Heavens! it was a mermaid. Yes, there could be no mistake. Her golden tresses fluttered in the breeze, and every now and then I caught a glimpse of a large dolphin-like tail of a greenish hue, that, at every movement she made, gleamed like silver. We could not help meeting each other; so, as I was always gallant towards the fair s.e.x, I saluted her.

Heavens! What eyes! What teeth! What features! But above all, her smile.

Gentlemen, I a.s.sure you her beauty was divine. Talk about sentiment! But words are wanting to express even the thousandth part of her charms.

Enough, gentlemen, that all that is innocent, virtuous, and heavenly, was expressed in that smile she gave me.

"Angel of Beauty!" I exclaimed, "whatever your name, your parentage, your birthplace, I vow----"

"Toughyarn, Toughyarn," said a voice within me, "don't make an old fool of yourself. Mermaids are deceitful and dangerous, however beautiful, as you will find out to your cost before long. Think of your age, your position. Is it likely you can excite a genuine pa.s.sion in any maid? For shame, sir. How can you appear romantic in her eyes, astride a grog cask. Only reflect a little."

But I would not reflect. I stifled the voice within me, and, abandoning myself to the impulse of my pa.s.sion, pressed my hand to my heart, and was about to burst out afresh, when the fair one, fixing her large deep blue eyes upon me--deep as the Mediterranean in a calm--with a supernaturally winning smile, addressed me thus, in tones to which the softest music was discord:

"Welcome, Captain Toughyarn, to our haunts. Welcome to the Mermaid Grotto of pearl and coral, to my father's palace. It is long that we await you. We have heard much of your exploits by sea, and we are all impatient to make the acquaintance of a hero so ill.u.s.trious."

"What!" I cried; "you have heard of me and expected me, O fair one?"

"Yes, captain, our Sybil has prophesied your arrival here, and your visit to our palace. Oh, she told me many things about you that she has seen in vision. The mutiny of your crew, your first mate struck with blindness when about to take your life. The loss of your second mate while reefing a sail. Your release by one of the crew, after having been bound to the mast; the wreck of your vessel; and, finally, our meeting, which tallies in the minutest particulars."

"What!" I exclaimed, in extreme astonishment, "all this she saw--even the grog barrel?"

"All--everything," replied my charmer; "but follow me, and lose no time; we all await you below."

So saying, she beckoned to me with the most bewitching smile, and floundered away from me, las.h.i.+ng her tail playfully as she went, and touching the chords of her harp, sang so sweetly, so divinely, some submarine ditty about fairy palaces, halls of coral, and fair mermaidens, that all resistance was vain.

"Don't be weak, Toughyarn," said the voice again; "resist her wiles, be deaf to her song."

But I was deaf only to the voice that warned me.

"Divine enchantress," I cried, "I will follow you wherever you go."

A wave now dashed me forward till I found myself by her side.

"Are you really willing to accompany me?" she asked, with a gleam that made me feel--I don't know how.

"To the utmost corners of the earth," I replied.

"And even to the depths of the ocean?" she asked.

"Even there," I replied. "Anywhere, anywhere with thee, for _I love thee_."

The murder was out. She heaved a sigh, and her head sank on my shoulder.

"Take care, Toughyarn," said the voice; "be warned ere it be too late."

This was the last time the voice spoke to me. It _was_ too late.

"And do you really love me?" she asked, gazing up into my face, her large blue eyes filling with tears.

"With all my heart and soul," I replied.

"And are you prepared to give me a proof of your love?"

"Any proof you may desire, my angel," I answered. "What is it?"

"I mean," she said, "would you be ready to make a _very great sacrifice_?"

"Anything," I replied; "anything for thee."

"Generous mortal!" she exclaimed, and she sobbed aloud.

The sight of beauty in tears always moved me. I was deeply touched at this outburst of grief on the part of my charmer, and did all I could to soothe and comfort her. I put my arm round her delicate waist; she offered no resistance, so, clasping her to my breast, I--I--well, gentlemen--I kissed her. The lightning played around me; the thunder crackling, threatened to break the drum of my ear, but I saw nothing, I heard nothing; I was unconscious of everything around me in that long loving kiss.

My lips seemed glued to hers. I thought I should never be able to tear myself away. I felt her heart beat violently against my waistcoat. My blood tingled in my fingers and toes with the intensity of my pa.s.sion. I no longer felt cold, for I bore a fire within.

When I at length removed my lips from hers, with a prodigious smack, she fell fainting in my arms. It was as if her whole soul had been poured forth in that one kiss, and there was none left to re-animate the frail form. I sprinkled some of her native element in her face, and she recovered.

I petted and caressed her, clasped her again and again to my breast, while she clung round my neck, confessing her love for me, and begging me never to desert her. Oh, the rapture of those moments! She vowed that I was all in all to her, that she had never loved before, and never should again; that she was mine, body and soul, and that if I ever ceased to love her, she should die.

She called me her own dear Toughyarn, her hero, her "beau ideal," her lover, her husband. She said that I was her master, and that she would be my slave for life.

I vowed that I was unworthy to pick off the seaweed that adhered to her tail. At the word "tail," she heaved a deep sigh, and, glancing at my lower extremities, burst into a fresh flood of tears. I was unable to account for these weeping fits, to which she seemed subject.

"Some female caprice," thought I; "nothing more."

"What ails thee, my beloved?" I said, tenderly. "Say why, O bewitching enchantress, do those pearl drops continue to pay their tiny tribute to the great ocean?"

"Oh!" she cried to herself, clasping her hands and looking upward, "I feel the sacrifice is _too_ great. It will cost him dearly; but has he not promised?"

"Promised!" I muttered. "What is this sacrifice, I wonder, that she requires of me? What can it be but always to live with her in her own home, under the sea. When once my soul is united with hers," I reasoned, "we shall be one being. I shall be able to live under the water as well as on _terra firma_. And what have I to make me wish to return to land?

I am a widower without family. I've no fortune, in fact, I am all but a ruined man, and I feel anxious to begin a new phase of existence. The sacrifice, after all, is not so great. What does it matter to me where I live, as long as I can bask the livelong day in the suns.h.i.+ne of such beauty?"

I felt that that long ambrosial kiss, the intensity of which had so exhausted my beloved, had imparted to me a new life. I no longer dreaded or believed in the possibility of being drowned. I felt an intense desire to behold the wonders of the deep, and visit those palaces of coral and mother-of-pearl that I had so often heard of, so seizing my beloved by the waist, I exclaimed,

"Come, O joy of my soul; lead me to the hall of thy father. Let us plunge into the turbulent billows. I thirst for thy element. I feel irresistibly drawn down by some new power that has come over me."

"Follow me, then, my beloved," she said, and with one splash disappeared beneath the waves.

To kick away my grog cask and plunge in after her was the work of a moment. I dived down, down, down, till I caught up my charmer, and we both dived together side by side. Down, down, down, deeper, deeper, and deeper, still we dived through forests of seaweed, startling away all sorts of curiously formed fish and sea monsters in our rapid course.

I thought I should never get to the bottom. At length, after long continued diving, I thought I descried gleaming through the waters, the mother-of-pearl roofs and pinnacles of various edifices; nor was I deceived, for as I dived deeper, I could distinguish a great city, built in a wild, weird, grotesque style of architecture, thoroughly new to me, yet grand in design, far above human conception.

There were castles on rocks, both the rock and the castle being formed out of one immense piece of coral, either white or red. The rock was hollowed out by nature, and natural staircases of the same material branched off in different directions, and led to the castle above. There were grottoes of mother-of-pearl, bridges of cl.u.s.tering and festooned coral, intermixed with common rock, and overgrown in parts by large quaint sea plants, which hung down in long creepers, entangling and festooning themselves, crossing and recrossing each other, and communicating the upper part of the city with the lower, the town being built partly on hills, and partly in the valleys.

Immense pits and hollows in what in other cities would have been the road, appeared to lead to some part of the city below. Crowds of the inhabitants were seen emerging from these grottoes, and disappearing through others. Several were seated in chariots of mother-of-pearl and turtle-sh.e.l.l, drawn by some hideous sea monster. There were mermen, bearded and muscular, bearing in their hands tridents; troops of mermaids of every conceivable variety of beauty, from the blue eyes and flaxen hair of the north, to the dark, Oriental type. Gigantic zoophytes and sea anemones opened their petals at us from every parapet. Music and singing was heard everywhere, and the submarine grottoes echoed with the strains of fair mermaidens. Groups of dancers surrounded us as we descended, twisting their lithesome bodies into all sorts of elegant and fantastic att.i.tudes; beautiful mer-children sported with the most hideous sea monsters it was possible to conceive.

The city seemed wealthy, the inhabitants contented, and yet there was little or no sign of industry amongst them. All the houses and palaces were evidently formed by the hand of nature, save where here and there a window or a mother-of-pearl roof or pavement betrayed manual skill.