Page 238 - Adventures in shadow-land

“ Fairest nymph/* he said.
He got no answer, but as the shadow of a cloud

flitted across her face, and then the moon shone on
her, he thought the nymph smiled. If there had

been any possible way, he would certainly have
climbed up to her, though he knew he could not live

five minutes out of the water. He did not think
anything about that, the poor silly merman. He

was so infatuated that he would have been glad to
die beside her. He stayed there the whole night

talking to the wooden sea-nymph, and when the
image moved with the rise and fall of the water he

thought she inclined her head toward him. He
said the most extravagant things to her; he told

her all he had ever thought or felt, things he had
never spoken to his best friend who loved him.

dearly; he poured out all his heart into the deaf
ears of the wooden nymph. The image kept look­

ing out over the water with its painted eyes, and
the merman thought, “ Now at last I have found
some one who can understand me.”

It was growing to gray dawn when a huge sea

gull came sweeping over the water, and poised
and hovered over the merman’s head.