CHAPTER 1





"Nobody," said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived
to tell the tale."

"Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's
face.

They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that
grew just at the edge of the bluff. Below them rolled the blue waves
of the great Pacific. A little way behind them was the house, a neat
frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and
pepper trees. Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distant
but built upon a bend of the coast--was the village, overlooking a
pretty bay.

Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch the
ocean below them. The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory
leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two. Once
Cap'n Bill had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schooner
that plied along the coast; and in those days Charlie Griffiths, who
was Trot's father, had been the Captain's mate. But ever since Cap'n
Bill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths had been
the captain of the little schooner while his old master lived
peacefully ashore with the Griffiths family.