Part 14

So now, when Ernest sat up and looked about him, he saw nothing but water; on every side, great black waves with white, foamy crests, came rolling angrily toward him, as if they would swallow him up; and some of them, like the one which had awakened him, even broke into the little boat, so that for some time Ernest was too busy in baling out the water to have time even to be frightened.

The rest of the night passed in this manner; but just before sunrise the wind died away to little and less, until, as the first level rays shot across the ocean, the calm was as intense as it had been the day before.

The waves continued restless some hours longer; but before noon they too had sunk to sleep, and the little boat with the lonely youth remained motionless, the centre of a great, round water-plain extending on every side to where the burning sky dipped down, trying in vain to cool itself.

For many hours Ernest had suffered terribly from heat and thirst, and now that the utter calm increased both, he thought he must surely die. Wrapping himself again in the thick cloak, and covering his head from the blistering rays of the sun, he lay many hours motionless in a sort of swoon. When he recovered consciousness, night had come again; the fierce sun had given way to the cool, pitying moon, which, round and full, beamed kindly down upon him; and a little breath of air, not enough to make the gentlest breeze, just rippled the surface of the water, and gave a faint, delightful motion to the little boat.

Ernest, faint and exhausted, sat up and looked about him. The scene was delightful, but he hardly knew it, his sufferings from thirst and fever were so intense; he looked toward the east and shuddered,--a few hours more and the sun would rise, burning and scorching all before him, and Ernest felt that then he must die.

With a low moan he stretched himself again in the bottom of the boat, and lay there still, with half-closed eyes, listening to the soft ripple of the tiny wavelets upon the side, and soothed by the faint motion of the little skiff.

Suddenly he perceived that this motion had increased; that it had become a gentle, regular rocking, although the noise of the water against the side was rather less than more. Raising his languid eyes, what was Ernest’s astonishment to see a row of little white hands clasping the edge of the boat on each side, and rocking it as if it were a cradle. Softly putting out his own hand, Ernest cautiously touched one of those nearest to him; yes, they were real fingers,--cool, white, and soft.

Rising upon his elbow, the young man peeped over the gunwale of his boat. Oh, what a singular picture met his view! The world beneath the sea had come up to visit the world above the sea. Strange, beautiful fishes, such as no man’s eye ever saw before, glittered and swam on every side; great whales, white as milk, too cautious ever to appear by day, moved in stately measure beneath the moon; the sea-serpent undulated his miles of glossy length, coiling himself up, and suddenly whirling into the air and down again in a great, gleaming arch to the water; far away in lonely grandeur, vast, white, and motionless, lay the great Kraken, that mysterious, traditional inhabitant of the sea, only known to men through the wild stories which ancient mariners will sometimes tell around the evening fire. Wonderful enough it was to see all these; but Ernest hardly glanced at them,--for, close about his boat on every side crowded beautiful forms, with fair, childlike faces and long, golden hair, which floated and glittered upon the moon-lit waves, as they swam gracefully hither and thither. Ernest knew them at once; they were the mer-maidens, the children of the sea, of whom he had often heard, and for whom he had often vainly gazed across the midnight ocean.

These it were, who, grasping with white fingers the little boat, had rocked it softly to the cadence of an inarticulate song. As the youth arose and looked at them, they gently loosed their hold, and sunk beneath the water; but in an instant he heard them again behind him, and, turning suddenly, saw them surrounding a great sea-shell, white without, and of an exquisite pink within, which they were softly moving on across the water toward his own boat, while they sung in unison their mysterious, wordless song. But Ernest neither looked nor listened to the mer-maidens, for within the shell, robed in the rich abundance of her own golden hair, reclined the loveliest creature that the youth had ever seen, with fair, pale face and great, dreamy eyes, blue as the sea itself. Upon her head was set a crown, and about her neck and arms were strings of enormous pearls, perfect in form and color, and yet no whiter or rounder than the throat and arms which they encircled.

In her hands she carried a little golden harp, and when she had approached within a few feet of Ernest’s boat, gently motioning her maidens to pause, she raised it and swept her tiny hand across the strings; a faint, sweet sound, like summer wind sighing through summer woods, met the young man’s ear, and then in a soft, low voice she sung. The words were in the same unknown tongue with which the mer-maidens had chanted his lullaby, but as Ernest listened they shaped themselves into meaning in his mind; and this was the song of the sea-princess:--

Come with me! Come with me! To the world beneath the sea. There live we, with mirth and glee, Oh, ’tis pleasant there to be!

Pearls so rare, jewels fair, Gather we to deck our hair; Toil nor care, dwell not there, Come then, mortal, if thou dare!

The song was repeated over and over, and each moment Ernest longed more to go and dwell in this fair world beneath the sea. At last the shell-boat was pushed close to his own; and all the little white hands of the mer-maidens, clasping one side of his skiff, tipped it more and more, until half unconsciously he slid from his own to the boat of the beautiful maiden, who clasped him in her arms, murmuring her soft song dreamily into his ear, while the great pink shell began first slowly, then more and more swiftly, to spin round and round, sinking at the same time until it was countless fathoms beneath the sea.

Ernest awoke as from a dream, to find himself laid upon a couch of soft, many colored sea-mosses, heaped high in the centre of a grotto-like chamber, whose walls of red and white coral were curiously cut, by the labor of the sword-fish employed as decorator in the royal palace, into the delicate and fanciful images of all the beautiful flowers and leaves which grow far beneath the sea, and are never seen by men. A cool, green light diffused itself through the chamber, and showed to Ernest the figure of the princess seated beside him, and gazing at him with loving eyes.

“What is your name, fair queen?” asked the young man softly.

“I am the Princess Su-le-mair, daughter of the great King Maro,” replied the maiden, a little proudly; but added, in a more tender voice, “And you, beautiful mortal,--what do they call you, above there?”

“My name is Ernest; but no mortal will ever call me so again, for I will live here always with you, beautiful Sulemair,” and the youth timidly kissed the rose-red lips of the fair sea-maiden.

“Then come with me and see our palace,--your home, now,” said Sulemair, bashfully drawing back, but holding out her cool, white hand to take that of her lover.

So Ernest went, guided by the princess, from one curious and beautiful room to another, until he had seen all the wonders of the palace in which he was now to dwell. Then Sulemair proposed that he should come with her to see her father and mother, who lived at some distance; for each of the princes and princesses had a palace to themselves; and as the royal family was very large, the king was obliged to keep a large corps of sword-fish coral-cutters constantly at work.

The young couple found that King Maro was just presiding at his council table, so that he could not receive them; but Queen Nymphia, Sulemair’s mother, professed herself very much pleased with their visit, and welcomed Ernest to the kingdom under the sea very warmly and gracefully.

After this, it being dinner time, the two returned to their own palace, and spent the rest of the day very happily in telling each other the history of their previous lives.

So the days went dreamily on. Sometimes Sulemair sung to her golden harp love-songs, or ballads of sea-life; sometimes she and her maidens danced with Ernest, who soon learned their strange and fanciful figures, while a band of conchs, carefully graduated in tone, played each on his own shell; sometimes the princess, or one of the maidens, told strange stories of wonderful sights and romantic adventures in their own country, to which Ernest replied with stories of the world above the sea, which made the mer-maidens open their blue eyes wide with astonishment.

These and other amusements filled the day; yet sometimes Ernest would find time to wonder if matters went on above as they had done in his own time, and to wish occasionally that he and Sulemair could make a little visit to earth, just to see how it looked once more. He never mentioned this fancy to his beautiful bride, however, lest she should think him discontented; but keeping it to himself, he dwelt upon it more and more, until at last he thought of hardly any thing else, and at times was so absent and dreamy that he forgot to listen to the songs and stories, or to dance when it was his turn to do so.

Sulemair was not slow to notice and to suspect the cause of this alteration in her beloved Ernest, and she, too, grew silent, thoughtful, and abstracted. At last, one day, Ernest, rousing suddenly from a reverie, found the princess seated beside him gazing into his face, while great tears, rolling down her cheeks and dropping off her chin, fell in round, white pearls at her feet.

“Dearest, sweetest, what is the matter?” asked Ernest, anxiously; for he had never seen the princess cry before.

“It is--it is, that Ernest wishes to leave me,” sobbed the poor little sea-nymph.

“Leave you! leave my Sulemair!” exclaimed Ernest, kissing her over and over; “I never dreamed of such a thing. But if you and I together, dearest, could make just a little visit up above,--eh, Susu?”

“Listen, dear,” said the princess, sitting up, and wiping her eyes; “for I have something to tell you. I never can visit the world above and return here--never. But I have one chance to exchange this life for that, if I choose, though I never thought of wishing it before. Are you sure, very sure, dear Ernest, that you wish me to come too? Will it not be enough if you can return alone? Perhaps, after a while, you would grow tired of your poor Sulemair, and then what should she do, all alone in a strange world?”