Chapter V: Preface (5)

He showed himself to scarcely more advantage now, as his aunt proceeded to single out one girl after another. 'We needn't have any formal nonsense between cousins,' she said; 'you know all their names already, I dare say. This is Milly, and that's Jane; and here's Flora, and Kitty, and Margaret, and this is my little Thomasina, keeping close to mamma, as usual.'

Poor Flushington ducked blindly in the various directions at the mention of each name, and then collectively to all; he had not sufficient presence of mind to offer them chairs, or cake, or anything, and besides, there was not nearly enough for that multitude.

Meanwhile his aunt had spread herself comfortably out in his only arm-chair, and was untying her bonnet-strings, while she beamed at him until he was ready to expire with embarrassment. 'I _do_ think, Frankie dear,' she observed at last, 'that when an old auntie all the way from Australia takes the trouble to come and see you like this, the least--the very _least_ you could do would be to give her one little kiss.'

She seemed so hurt by the omission, that Flushington dared not refuse; he staggered up and kissed her somewhere upon her face--after which he did not know which way to look, so terribly afraid was he that the same ceremony might have to be gone through with all the cousins, and he could _not_ have survived that.

Happily for him, however, they did not appear to expect it, and he balanced a chair on its hind legs and, resting one knee upon it, waited for them to begin a conversation, for he could not think of a single apposite remark himself.

His aunt came to his rescue. 'You don't ask after your Uncle Samuel--have you forgotten all the beetles and things he used to send you?' she said reprovingly.

'No,' said Flushington, to whom Uncle Samuel was another revelation. 'How is the beetle--I mean, how is Uncle Samuel? Quite well, I hope?'

'Only tolerably so, Frank, thank you; as well as could be expected after his loss.'

'I didn't hear of that,' said Flushington, catching at this conversational rope in despair. 'Was it--did he lose much?'

'I was not referring to a money loss,' she said, and her glance was stony for the moment; 'I was (as I think you might have guessed) referring to the death of your cousin John.'

And Flushington, who had begun to feel his first agonies abating, had a terrible relapse at this unhappy mistake; he stammered something about it being very sad indeed, and then, wondering why no one had ever kept him better posted as to his relations, he resolved that he would not betray his ignorance by any further inquiries.

But his aunt was evidently wounded afresh. 'I ought to have known,' she said, and shook her head pathetically; 'they soon forget us when we leave the old country--and yet I did think, too, my own sister's son would remember his cousin's death! Well, well, my loves, we must teach him to know us better now we have the opportunity. Frankie dear, the girls and I expect you to take us about everywhere and show us all the sights; or what's the use of having a nephew at Cambridge University, you know.'

Flushington had a horrible mental vision of himself careering all over Cambridge at the head of a long procession of female relatives, a fearful prospect for so shy a man. 'Shall you be here long?' he asked.

'Oh, only a week or so; we're at the "Bull," very near you; and so we can always be popping in on you. And now, Frankie, my boy, will you think your aunt a very bold beggar if she asks you to give us a little something to eat? We wouldn't wait for lunch, the dear children were so impatient, and we're all _ravenous_! We all thought, the girls and I (didn't you, dears?) that it would be such fun lunching with a real college student in his own room.'

'Oh,' protested Flushington, 'I assure you there's nothing so extraordinary in it, and--and the fact is, I'm afraid there's very little for you to eat, and the kitchens and the buttery are closed by this time.' He said this at a venture, for he felt quite unequal to facing the college cook and ordering lunch from that tremendous personage--he would far rather order it from his tutor even.

'But,' he added, touched by the little cry of disappointment which the girls made in spite of themselves, 'if you don't mind potted ham--there's some left in the bottom of this tin, and there's some bread and an inch of butter, and a little marmalade and a few milk biscuits--and there _was_ some sherry this morning!'

His cousins declared merrily that they were so hungry they would enjoy anything, and so they sat round the table and poor Flushington served out meagre rations to them of all the provisions he could hunt up, even to his figs and his French plums. It was like a shipwreck, he thought drearily. There was not nearly enough to go round, and they lunched with evident disillusionment, thinking that the college luxury of which they had heard so much had been sadly exaggerated.

During the meal the aunt began to study Flushington's features with affectionate interest. 'There's a strong look of poor dear Simon about him when he smiles,' she said, looking at him through her gold double-glasses. 'There, did you catch it, girls? Just his mother's profile! Turn your face a leetle more to the window; I want to get the light on your nose, Frankie; _now_ don't you see the likeness to your aunt's portrait at Gumtree Creek, girls?'

And Flushington had to sit still with all the girls' charming eyes fixed critically upon his crimson countenance, until he would have given worlds to be able to slide down under the table and evade them, but of course he was obliged to remain above.

'He's got dear Caroline's nose!' the aunt announced triumphantly, and the cousins were agreed that he certainly had Caroline's nose--which made him feel vaguely that he ought at least to _offer_ to return it.

Presently the youngest and prettiest of the girls whispered to her mother, who laughed indulgently. 'Why, you baby,' she said, 'what do you think this silly child wants me to ask you, Frankie? She says she would so like to see how you look in your college robes and that odd four-cornered hat you all wear. Will you put them on, just to please her?'

And he had to put them on and walk slowly up and down the room in his cap and gown, feeling all the time that he was making a dismal display of himself, and that the girls were plainly disappointed, for they admitted that somehow they had fancied the academical costume would have been more becoming.

After this came a hotly-sustained catechism upon his studies, his amusements, his friends, and his mode of life generally, and the aunt--who by this time felt the potted ham beginning to disagree with her--seemed to be unfavourably impressed by the answers she obtained.

This was particularly the case when to the question 'what church he attended,' he replied that he attended none, as he was always regular at chapel: for the aunt was disappointed to find her nephew a Dissenter, and said as much; while Flushington, though he saw the misunderstanding, was far too shy and too miserable to explain it.

The cousins by this time were clustered together, whispering and laughing over little private jokes, and he, after the manner of sensitive men, of course concluded they were laughing at _him_, and perhaps on this occasion he was not mistaken.

He stood by the fireplace, growing hotter and hotter every second, inwardly cursing his whole race, and wishing that his father had been a foundling. What would he have to do next? take all his people out for a walk. He trembled at the idea. He would have to pass through the court with them, under the eyes of the men who were loitering about the grass plots before going down to the boats; through the open window he could hear their voices, and the clash they made as they fenced with walking-sticks.

As he stood there, dumb and miserable, he heard another tap at his door--a feeble one this time.

'Why,' cried his aunt, 'that must be poor old Sophy at last--you may not remember old Sophy, Frankie; you were quite a baby when she came out to us; but she remembers _you_, and begged so hard to be allowed to come and see you. Don't keep her standing outside. Come in, Sophy; it's quite right; Master Frankie is here!'

And at this a very old person in a black bonnet came in, and was overcome by emotion at the first sight of Flushington. 'To think,' she quavered, 'to think as my dim old eyes should live to see the child I've dandled times and again on my lap growed out into a college gentleman!' Whereupon she hugged Flushington respectfully, and wept copiously upon his shoulder, which made him almost cataleptic.

But as she grew calmer, she became more critical, even confessing a certain feeling of disappointment with Flushington. He had not filled out, she declared, so fine as he'd promised to fill out. And when she began to drag up reminiscences of his early youth, asking if he recollected how he wouldn't be washed unless they first put his little spotted wooden horse on the washstand, and how they had to bribe him with a penny trumpet to take his castor oil, and how fond he used to be of senna tea, Flushington felt that he must seem more of a fool than ever!

This was quite bad enough, but at last the girls began to be restless, and there being no efforts made to entertain them, amused themselves by exploring their cousin's rooms and exclaiming at everything they saw; admiring his pipes and his umbrella rack, his buffalo horns and his tin heraldic shields, and his quaint wooden kettle-holder, until they came round to his French novel, and, as they were healthy-minded Colonial girls, with a limited knowledge of Parisian literature, they pounced upon it directly, and wanted Flushington to tell them what it was all about.

'Yes, Frankie, tell us,' the aunt struck in as he faltered; 'I'm always glad for the girls to know of any nice foreign works, as they've really improved wonderfully in their French lately.'

There are French novels, no doubt, of which it would be practicable and pleasant to give a general idea to one's aunt, but they are not numerous, and this particular book did not chance to be one of them.

So this demand threw him into a cold perspiration; he had not presence of mind to prevaricate or invent, and he would probably have committed himself in some deplorable manner, if just at that moment there had not happened to come another tap at the door, or rather a sharp rattle, as if with the end of something wooden.

Flushington's head swam with horror at this third interruption; he was prepared for anything now--another aunt, say from Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand, with a fresh relay of female cousins, or a staff of aged family retainers who had washed him in early infancy: he sat there cowering.

But when the door opened, a tall, fair, good-looking young fellow in a boating-straw and flannels, and carrying a tennis racket, burst impulsively in. 'Oh, I say,' he began, 'you don't happen to have heard or seen anything of--oh, beg pardon, didn't see, you know,' he added, as he noticed the extraordinary fact that Flushington had people up.

'Oh--er--let me introduce you,' said Flushington, with a vague notion that this was the right thing to do; 'Mr. Lushington--Mrs. (no, I don't know her name)--my aunt ... my cousins!'

The young man, who had just been about to retire, bowed and stared with sudden surprise. 'Do you know,' he said slowly in an undertone to the other, 'do you know that I can't help fancying there's some mistake--are you sure that's not _my_ aunt you've got hold of there?'

'Oh,' whispered Flushington, catching at this unexpected hope, 'do you really think so? She seems so certain she belongs to me!'

'Well,' said the new-comer, 'I only know I have an aunt and cousins I've never seen who were coming up some time this week--do these ladies happen to come from the Colonies, by the way?'

'Yes, yes!' cried Flushington, eagerly; 'it's all right, they belong to you; and, I say, _do_ take them away; I can't bear it any longer!'

'Now, now, what's this whispering, Frankie?' cried the aunt; 'not very polite, I must say!'

'He says,' explained Flushington, 'he says it's all a mistake, and--and you're not my aunt at all!'

'Oh, indeed, _does_ he?' she replied, drawing herself together with dignity; 'and may I ask who is this gentleman who knows so much about our family--I didn't catch the name?'

'My name is Lushington--Frank Lushington,' he said.

'Then--who are _you_?' she demanded, turning upon the unfortunate owner of the rooms; 'answer me, I insist upon it!'

'Me?' he stammered, 'I'm Francis Flushington. I--I'm very sorry--but I can't help it!'

'Why--why--then you're no nephew of _mine_, sir!' cried the aunt.

'Thank you very much,' said Flushington, with positive gratitude.

'But,' she said, 'I want to know _why_ I have been allowed to deceive myself in this way. Perhaps, sir, you will kindly explain?'

'What's the good of asking _me_?' protested Flushington; 'I haven't an idea why!'

'I think I see,' put in her genuine nephew; 'you see, there isn't much light on the staircase outside, and you must have taken the "Flushington" over his oak to be "F. Lushington," and gone straight in, you know. They told me at the lodge that some ladies had been asking for me, and so when I didn't find you in my rooms, I thought I'd look in here on the chance--and here you all are, eh?'

But the aunt was annoyed to find that she had been pouring out all her pent-up affection over a perfect stranger, and had eaten his lunch into the bargain. She almost feared she had put herself in a slightly ridiculous position, and this, of course, made her feel very angry with Flushington.

'Yes, yes, yes!' she said excitedly, 'that's all very well; but why did he deliberately encourage me in my mistake?'

'How was I to know it _was_ a mistake?' pleaded Flushington. 'You told me you were my aunt from Australia; for all I know Australia may be overrun with my aunts. I supposed you knew best.'

'But you asked affectionately after Samuel,' she persisted; 'you must have had some object in humouring my mistake.'

'You told me to ask after him, and I did,' said Flushington; 'what else could I do?'

'No, sir,' she said, rising in her wrath; 'it was a most ungentlemanly and heartless practical joke on your part, and--and I shall not listen to further excuses.'

'Oh, good gracious!' Flushington almost whimpered; 'a practical joke! _me_, oh, it really is _too_ bad!'

'My dear aunt,' Lushington assured her, 'he's quite incapable of such a thing; it's a mistake on both sides; he wouldn't wish to intercept another fellow's aunt.'

'I wouldn't do such a thing for worlds!' protested Flushington, sincerely enough; he would not have robbed a fellow creature of a single relation of the remotest degree; and as for carrying off an aunt and a complete set of female cousins, he would have blushed (and, in fact, did blush) at the bare suspicion.

The cousins themselves had been laughing and whispering together all this time, regarding their new relation with shy admiration, very different from the manner in which they had looked at poor Flushington; the old nurse, too, was overjoyed at the exchange, and now declared that from the minute she set eyes on Flushington, she had felt something inside tell her that her Master Frank would never have turned out so undersized as _him_!

'Well,' said the aunt, mollified at last, 'you must forgive us for having disturbed you like this, Mr. a--Flushington' (the unfortunate man murmured that he did not mind it _now_); 'and now, Frank, my boy, I should like the girls to see _your_ rooms.'

'Come along then,' said he. 'Will you let me give you something to eat?--I'll run down and see what they can let me have; and perhaps you'll kindly help me to lay the cloth; _I_ never can lay the thing straight myself, and my old bedmaker's out of the way, as usual.'

The girls looked dubiously at one another--they were frightfully hungry still; at last the eldest, out of pure consideration for Flushington's feelings, said, 'Thank you very much, Cousin Frank--but your friend has kindly given us some lunch already.'

'Oh!' he said, 'has he though? That's really uncommonly good of you, old chap.'

But Flushington's modesty did not allow him to accept undeserved gratitude. 'I say,' he whispered, taking the other aside, 'I gave them what I could, but I'm afraid it--it wasn't much of a lunch.'

Lushington made a mental note that he would repeat his invitation when he had got his cousins outside. 'Well, look here,' he said, 'will you come and help me to row the ladies up to Byron's Pool--say in an hour from this--and we'll all come back and have a little dinner in my rooms, eh?'

'Yes, Mr. Flushington, do--do come,' the girls all entreated him, 'just to show you forgive us for taking possession of you like this.'

But Flushington wriggled out of it somehow. He couldn't come, he said uncomfortably; he had an engagement. He had nothing of the kind, but he felt that he had had quite enough female society for one day.

They did not press him, and he was heartily glad when the last of his temporary relations had filed out of his little room, leaving him reminiscences of a terrible half-hour which caused him to be extremely careful for months after not to lunch without ascertaining previously that his outer door was securely sported. But never again did a solitary hungry aunt invade his solitude.

_THE SIREN._

Long long ago, a siren lived all alone upon a rocky little island far out in the Southern Ocean. She may have been the youngest and most beautiful of the original three sirens, driven by her sisters' jealousy, or her own weariness of their society, to seek this distant home; or she may have lived there in solitude from the beginning.

But she was not unhappy; all she cared about was the admiration and worship of mortal men, and these were hers whenever she wished, for she had only to sing, and her exquisite voice would float away over the waters, until it reached some passing vessel, and then every one that heard was seized instantly with the irresistible longing to hasten to her isle and throw himself adoringly at her feet.

One day as she sat upon a low headland, looking earnestly out over the sparkling blue-green water before her, and hoping to discover the peak of some far-off sail on the hazy sea-line, she was startled by a sound she had never heard before--the grating of a boat's keel on the pebbles in the little creek at her side.

She had been too much absorbed in watching for distant ships to notice that a small bark had been gliding round the other side of her island, but now, as she glanced round, she saw that the stranger who had guided it was already jumping ashore and securing his boat.

Evidently she had not attracted him there, for she had been too indolent to sing of late, and he did not seem even to have seen her, or to have landed from any other motive than curiosity.

He was quite young, gallant-looking and sunburnt, with brown hair curling over his forehead, an open face and honest grey eyes. And as she looked at him, the fancy came to her that she would like to question him and hear his voice; she would find out, if she could, what manner of beings these mortals were over whom she possessed so strange a power.

Never before had such a thought entered her mind, notwithstanding that she had seen many mortals of every age and rank, from captain to the lowest galley slave; but then she had only seen them under the influence of her magical voice, when they were struck dumb and motionless, after which--except as proofs of her power--they did not interest her.

But this stranger was still free--so long as she did not choose to enslave him; and for some reason she did not choose to do so just yet.

As he turned towards her, she beckoned to him imperiously, and he saw the slender graceful figure above for the first time,--the fairest maiden his eyes had ever beheld, with an unearthly beauty in her wonderful dark blue eyes, and hair of the sunniest gold,--he stood gazing at her in motionless uncertainty, for he thought he must be cheated by a vision.

He came nearer, and, obeying a careless motion of her hand, threw himself down on a broad shelf of rock a little below the spot where she was seated; still he did not dare to speak lest the vision should pass away.

She looked at him for some time with an innocent, almost childish, curiosity shining under her long lashes. At last she gave a low little laugh: 'Are you _afraid_ of me?' she asked; 'why don't you speak? but perhaps,' she added to herself, 'mortals _cannot_ speak.'

'I was silent,' he said, 'lest by speaking I should anger you--for surely you must be some goddess or sea-nymph?'

'Ah, you _can_ speak!' she cried. 'No, I am no goddess or nymph, and you will not anger me--if only you will tell me many things I want to know!'

And she began to ask him all the questions she could think of: first about the great world in which men lived, and then about himself, for she was very curious, in a charmingly wilful and capricious fashion of her own.

He answered frankly and simply, but it seemed as if some influence were upon him which kept him from being dazzled and overcome by her loveliness, for he gave no sign as yet of yielding to the glamour she cast upon all other men, nor did his eyes gleam with the despairing adoration the siren knew so well.

She was quick to perceive this, and it piqued her. She paid less and less attention to the answers he gave her, and ceased at last to question him further.

Presently she said, with a strange smile that showed her cruel little teeth gleaming between her scarlet lips, 'Why don't you ask me who _I_ am, and what I am doing here alone? do not you care to know?'

'If you will deign to tell me,' he said.

'Then I will tell you,' she said; 'I am a siren--are you not afraid _now_?'

'Why should I be afraid?' he asked, for the name had no meaning in his ears.

She was disappointed; it was only her voice--nothing else, then--that deprived men of their senses; perhaps this youth was proof even against that; she longed to try, and yet she hesitated still.

'Then you have never heard of me,' she said; 'you don't know why I sit and watch for the great gilded ships you mortals build for yourselves?'

'For your pleasure, I suppose,' he answered. 'I have watched them myself many a time; they are grand as they sweep by, with their sharp brazen beaks cleaving the frothing water, and their painted sails curving out firm against the sky. It is good to hear the measured thud of the great oars and the cheerful cries of the sailors as they clamber about the cordage.'

She laughed disdainfully. 'And you think I care for all that!' she cried. 'Where is the pleasure of looking idly on and admiring?--that is for them, not for me. As these galleys of yours pass, I sing--and when the sailors hear, they must come to me. Man after man leaps eagerly into the sea, and makes for the shore--until at last the oars grind and lock together, and the great ship drifts helplessly on, empty and aimless. I like that.'

'But the men?' he asked, with an uneasy wonder at her words.

'Oh, they reach the shore--some of them, and then they lie at my feet, just as you are lying now, and I sing on, and as they listen they lose all power or wish to move, nor have I ever heard them speak as you speak; they only lie there upon the sand or rock, and gaze at me always, and soon their cheeks grow hollower and hollower, and their eyes brighter and brighter--and it is I who make them so!'

'But I see them not,' said the youth, divided between hope and fear; 'the beach is bare; where, then, are all those gone who have lain here?'

'I cannot say,' she replied carelessly; 'they are not here for long; when the sea comes up it carries them away.'

'And you do not care!' he cried, struck with horror at the absolute indifference in her face; 'you do not even try to keep them here?'

'Why should I care?' said the siren lightly; 'I do not want them. More will always come when I wish. And it is so wearisome always to see the same faces, that I am glad when they go.'

'I will not believe it, siren,' groaned the young man, turning from her in bitter anguish; 'oh, you cannot be cruel!'

'No, I am not cruel,' she said in surprise. 'And why will you not believe me? It is true!'

'Listen to me,' he said passionately: 'do you know how bitter it is to die,--to leave the sunlight and the warm air, the fair land and the changing sea?'

'How can I know?' said the siren. '_I_ shall never die--unless--unless something happens which will never be!'

'You will live on, to bring this bitterness upon others for your sport. We mortals lead but short lives, and life, even spent in sorrow, is sweet to most of us; and our deaths when they come bring mourning to those who cared for us and are left behind. But you lure men to this isle, and look on unmoved as they are borne away!'

'No, you are wrong,' she said; 'I am not cruel, as you think me; when they are no longer pleasant to look at, I leave them. I never see them borne away. I never thought what became of them at last. Where are they now?'

'They are dead, siren,' he said sadly, 'drowned. Life was dear to them; far away there were women and children to whom they had hoped to return, and who have waited and wept for them since. Happy years were before them, and to some at least--but for you--a restful and honoured old age. But you called them, and as they lay here the greedy waves came up, dashed them from these rocks and sucked them, blinded, suffocating, battling painfully for breath and life, down into the dark green depths. And now their bones lie tangled in the sea-weed, but they themselves are wandering, sad, restless shades, in the shadowy world below, where is no sun, no happiness, no hope--but only sighing evermore, and the memory of the past!'

She listened with drooping lids, and her chin resting upon her soft palm; at last she said with a slight quiver in her voice,'I did not know--I did not mean them to die. And what can I do? I cannot keep back the sea.'

'You can let them sail by unharmed,' he said.

'I cannot!' she cried. 'Of what use is my power to me if I may not exercise it? Why do you tell me of men's sufferings--what are they to me?'

'They give you their lives,' he said; 'you fill them with a hopeless love and they die for it in misery--yet you cannot even pity them!'

'Is it love that brings them here?' she said eagerly. 'What is this that is called love? For I have always known that if I ever love--but then only--I must die, though what love may be I know not. Tell me, so that I may avoid it!'

'You need not fear, siren,' he said, 'for, if death is only to come to you through love, you will never die!'

'Still, I want to know,' she insisted; 'tell me!'

'If a stranger were to come some day to this isle, and when his eyes meet yours, you feel your indifference leaving you, so that you have no heart to see him lie ignobly at your feet, and cannot leave him to perish miserably in the cold waters; if you desire to keep him by your side--not as your slave and victim, but as your companion, your equal, for evermore--that will be love!'

'If that is love,' she cried joyously, 'I shall indeed never die! But that is not how men love _me_?' she added.

'No,' he said; 'their love for you must be some strange and enslaving passion, since they will submit to death if only they may hear your voice. That is not true love, but a fatal madness.'

'But if mortals feel love for one another,' she asked,'_they_ must die, must they not?'

'The love of a man for a maiden who is gentle and good does not kill--even when it is most hopeless,' he said; 'and where she feels it in return, it is well for both, for their lives will flow on together in peace and happiness.'

He had spoken softly, with a far away look in his eyes that did not escape the siren.

'And you love one of your mortal maidens like that?' she asked. 'Is she more beautiful than I am?'

'She is mortal,' he said, 'but she is fair and gracious, my maiden; and it is she who has my love, and will have it while I live.'

'And yet,' she said, with a mocking smile, 'I could make you forget her.'

Her childlike waywardness had left her as she spoke the words, and a dangerous fire was shining in her deep eyes.

'Never!' he cried; 'even you cannot make me false to my love! And yet,' he added quickly, 'I dare not challenge you, enchantress that you are; what is my will against your power?'

'You do not love me yet,' she said; 'you have called me cruel, and reproached me; you have dared to tell me of a maiden compared with whom I am nothing! You shall be punished. I will have you for my own, like the others!'

'Siren,' he pleaded, seizing one of her hands as it lay close to him on the hot grey rock, 'take my life if you will--but do not drive away the memory of my love; let me die, if I must die, faithful to her; for what am I, or what is my love, to you?'

'Nothing,' she said scornfully, and yet with something of a caress in her tone, 'yet I want you; you shall lie here, and hold my hand, and look into my eyes, and forget all else but me.'

'Let me go,' he cried, rising, and turning back to regain his bark; 'I choose life while I may!'

She laughed. 'You have no choice,' she said; 'you are mine!' she seemed to have grown still more radiantly, dazzlingly fair, and presently, as the stranger made his way to the creek where his boat was lying, she broke into the low soft chant whose subtle witchery no mortals had ever resisted as yet.

He started as he heard her, but still he went on over the rocks a little longer, until at last he stopped with a groan, and turned slowly back; his love across the sea was fading fast from his memory; he felt no desire to escape any longer; he was even eager at last to be back on the ledge at her feet and listen to her for ever.

He reached it and sank down with a sigh, and a drowsy delicious languor stole over him, taking away all power to stir or speak.

Her song was triumphant and mocking, and yet strangely tender at times, thrilling him as he heard it, but her eyes only rested now and then, and always indifferently, upon his upturned face.

He wished for nothing better now than to lie there, following the flashing of her supple hands upon the harp-strings and watching every change of her fair face. What though the waves might rise round him and sweep him away out of sight, and drown her voice with the roar and swirl of waters? it would not be just yet.

And the siren sang on; at first with a cruel pride at finding her power supreme, and this youth, for all his fidelity, no wiser than the rest; he would waste there with yearning, hopeless passion, till the sight of him would weary her, and she would leave him to drift away and drown forgotten.

Yet she did not despise him as she had despised all the others; in her fancy his eyes bore a sad reproach, and she could look at him no longer with indifference.

Meanwhile the waves came rolling in fast, till they licked the foot of the rock, and as the foam creamed over the shingle, the siren found herself thinking of the fate which was before him, and, as she thought, her heart was wrung with a new strange pity.

She did not want him to be drowned; she would like him there always at her feet, with that rapt devotion upon his face; she almost longed to hear his voice again--but that could never be!

And the sun went down, and the crimson flush in the sky and on the sea faded out, the sea grew grey and crested with the white billows, which came racing in and broke upon the shore, roaring sullenly and raking back the pebbles with a sharp rattle at each recoil. The siren could sing no longer; her voice died away, and she gazed on the troubled sea with a wistful sadness in her great eyes.

At last a wave larger than the others struck the face of the low cliff with a shock that seemed to leave it trembling, and sent the cold salt spray dashing up into the siren's face.

She sprang forward to the edge and looked over, with a sudden terror lest the ledge below should be bare--but her victim lay there still, bound fast by her spell, and careless of the death that was advancing upon him.

Then she knew for the first time that she could not give him up to the sea, and she leaned down to him and laid one small white hand upon his shoulder. 'The next wave will carry you away,' she cried, trembling; 'there is still time; save yourself, for I cannot let you die!'

But he gave no sign of having heard her, but lay there motionless, and the wind wailed past them and the sea grew wilder and louder.

She remembered now that no efforts of his own could save him--he was doomed, and she was the cause of it, and she hid her face in her slender hands, weeping for the first time in her life.

The words he had spoken in answer to her questions about love came back to her: 'It was true, then,' she said to herself; 'it is love that I feel for him. But I cannot love--I must not love him--for if I do, my power is gone, and I must throw myself into the sea!'

So she hardened her heart once more, and turned away, for she feared to die; but again the ground shook beneath her, and the spray rose high into the air, and then she could bear it no more--whatever it cost her, she must save him--for if he died, what good would her life be to her?

'If one of us must die,' she said, '_I_ will be that one. I am cruel and wicked, as _he_ told me; I have done harm enough!' and bending down, she wound her arms round his unconscious body and drew him gently up to the level above.

'You are safe now,' she whispered; 'you shall not be drowned--for I love you. Sail back to your maiden on the mainland, and be happy; but do not hate me for the evil I have wrought, for suffering and death have come to me in my turn!'

The lethargy into which he had fallen left him under her clinging embrace, and the sad, tender words fell almost unconsciously upon his dulled ears; he felt the touch of her hair as it brushed his cheek, and his forehead was still warm with the kiss she had pressed there as he opened his eyes--only to find himself alone.

For the fate which the siren had dreaded had come upon her at last; she had loved, and she had paid the penalty for loving, and never more would her wild, sweet voice beguile mortals to their doom.

_THE CURSE OF THE CATAFALQUES._