acted inanother capacity--that of maid to Nelda. A black girl she was, butclean, smart, and tidy and trim, full of merriment and good-nature. Herassistant was Fitz, and with him alone she deemed it her duty to be alittle harsh now and then. Because Fitz wouldn't keep his place, so shesaid.
Poor Janeira, she always forgot she was a nigger herself, seeing so manywhite faces all around her. But when she looked into the little mirrorthat hung in her pantry, she used to go into fits of laughter at herface therein displayed. She was a funny girl.
Ransey used to take Nelda up on these nights, and hoist her on to thegrating abaft the quarterdeck, and she would cling to his arm, while heheld on to the bulwark.
Thus they would stand, silent and awed, for long minutes at a time.
Was there nothing to break the dread stillness? There was occasionallythe flap of a sail, or a footstep forward; but no song from the men, noloud talking--they hardly cared to speak above a whisper. But more thanonce a plash was heard, and a great dark head would appear from the sideof a billow, seen distinctly enough in the gleam of the starlight, thensink and disappear.
"Oh, the awful beast, 'Ansey! Can it climb up and swallow us?"
"No, dear silly, no."
But older people than Nelda have been frightened by such dread spectresappearing close to a ship at night while in the doldrums, and wiserheads than hers have been puzzled to account for them.
Are they sharks? No, no. Five times as large are they as any sharkever seen. Whales? No, again. A whale lives not under the water buton it.
In the ocean wild and wide, reader, we sailors find many a strangemystery, see many a fearsome sight at night we can neither describe norexplain. And if we talk of these when we come on shore, you landsmenlook incredulous.
But after a time the child became accustomed to scenes like these.Indeed the sea by night appeared to have a kind of fascination for her.
In beholding it, she appeared to be looking through it into some strangeland, the abode of the fairies and elves and mermaids with which herimagination had peopled it.
"Deep, deep down among the rocks," she would say to Ransey, "who livesthere? Tell us, tell us."
Ransey had therefore to become the story-teller whether he would or not.
He spoke to her then of mermaid-land deep down below the dark, heavingocean.
"Deep, deep, _deep_ down, 'Ansey?"
"Very, very deep. You see only a glimmer of light below you as you sinkand sink; and this light is greenish and clear, and the farther down youget the brighter and more beautiful does it become."
"And you're not drowned?"
"No! oh, no! not if you're good. Well, then you come to--oh, ever sobeautiful a country! The trees are all of sea-weed, and underneath themis the yellow, yellow sand; but here and there are beautiful rockeries,and beds of such bright and lovely flowers that they would dazzle youreyes to look upon. And the strange thing about these flowers is this,Babs, they are all alive."
"All alive? My! and can they talk to you?"
"Yes, and sing too. A sailor man who had been there told me. And hesaid their voices were so low and sweet that you had to put your earquite close down before you could hear and understand; for at a littledistance, he said, it was just like the tinkling of tiny silver bells.The danger is in stopping too long, and being enchanted or slain."
"Enchanted? Whatever is that, 'Ansey?"
"Oh, you stay so long listening that you feel like in a dream, andbefore you know what has happened you are a flower yourself; and then,though you can see and hear everything that goes on around you, youcannot move away from the rock you are growing on, and you never getback again out of the water."
"Never, never, 'Ansey?"
"Never, never, Babs."
"But in the deep, dark, beautiful woods that you come to and enter thereis many a terrible monster living--horned, shelly, warty monsters. Andthey are all waiting to catch you."
"Terrible, 'Ansey!"
"Are you afraid, dear?"
"Oh, no, 'Ansey! Be terrible some more."
"Well, there is danger all around you now, for some of these monstersare quite hidden among the sand, with only one eye protruding, and thislooks like a flower because it grows on a stalk. But when you go tolook at it, suddenly the sandy ground gives way under you. You arecaught and killed, and know no more.
"Some of these monsters, Nelda, live in caves, and if you go too nearthe entrance a great, long, skinny arm is thrust out, and you aredragged into the dark and devoured."
"But I would turn quickly away out of that terrible wood, 'Ansey," saidNelda.
"Yes, that is just what the sailor did."
"And then he was saved?"
"Not yet. He came to a lovely wide patch of clear, hard sand, and hewas looking down to admire it. He had taken up some to examine, and waspouring it from one hand into the other--for the sand was pure goldmixed with pearls and rubies--when all at once it began to get dark, andlooking up he saw a creature that was nearly all one horrible, cruel,grinning head, with eight long arms round it. It stopped high up, justhovering, Nelda, like a hawk over a field. The sailor man wasspell-bound. He could only stare up at it with starting eyes and uttera long, low, frightened moan. But from the creature above a tent waslowered, just like a huge bell, and he knew it would soon fall over himand he would be sucked up to the sea-demon's body and slowly eatenalive.
"But at that very moment, sissie, the creature uttered a terribly wildand mournful cry, and darted off through the water, which was all justlike ink now."
"And the sailor was dead?"
"No; a voice that sounded like the sweetest music ever he had heard inhis life was heard, and a hand grasped his.
"`Quick, quick,' she cried, for it was a mermaid, `I will lead you intosafety. Stay but another moment here and you are doomed.'
"`I'll follow you to the end of the world, miss,' said the gallantsailor.
"It did seem queer to call a mermaid miss, but Jack Reid couldn't helpit.
"`You won't have to follow so far,' she said, with a sweet smile thatput Jack's heart all in a flutter.
"And in five minutes' time they were out of danger, and there was Jackwith his hat in his hand, which he had taken off for politeness' sake,being led along by the most charming young lady he had ever clapped eyeson.
"`Her beauty,' he said to me, `was radiant, and her long yellow hairfloated behind her in the water till I was ravished; on'y the wust of itwas, that all below the waist wasn't lady at all, but ling or some otherkind of fish.'
"But Jack wouldn't look at the ling part at all, only just at themermaid's face and hair and hands.
"However dark it might have been, you could have seen to read by thelight of the diamonds around her brow and neck.
"They soon came to a rock of quartz and porphyry, and next minute Jackfound himself in a hall of such dazzling delight that he had to rub hiseyes and pinch himself hard to make sure he was not in a dream. Thiswas the mermaids' and sea-fairies' great ballroom.
"Tier upon tier of galleries rose up towards the beautiful, star-studdedceiling, and every gallery was filled with beautiful ladies. Jack knewthat they all ended in ling, but the tails could not be seen.
"There was light and loveliness everywhere, and flowers everywhere--"
"Go on, 'Ansey. Your story is better than the Revelations, better eventhan `Jack the Giant Killer.'"
"I must stop, siss, because even _I_ don't know much more, only that themusic was so ravishing that Jack himself danced till he couldn't dance abit more."
"And did he sit down?"
"No; he thought he would like a smoke, so he floated away down to theentrance to a cave at the far, far end.
"`That must be the smoking-room,' he thought to himself, so he pushedaside the curtain and floated boldly in.
"But lo and behold, this inner cave was filled with little shrivelled-upold men, uglier far in the face than toads.
"These, sissie, were the mermen, an
d they were all sitting on roughblocks of coral, which must have hurt them dreadful, nursing theirtails. These mermen sat there swaying their yellow, wrinkled bodiesback and fore, to and fro, but taking not the slightest notice of Jack.The sailor stood staring at them; and well he might, for whatever motionone made the others all made the same. If one lifted a skeleton hand torub its bald head, every hand was raised, every bald head was rubbed;whichever way one swayed all the rest swayed; sometimes every blear eyewas directed to the ceiling, or lowered towards their tails, as the casemight be; and when one gaped and yawned they all gaped and yawned, andJack told me that he had never seen such a set of ugly, toothless mouthsin his life before.
"But as _they_