Tim Leary. Sure, bain't that power o' the glimp o' the eye a mark o' the
mermaid? They bewitches a man's heart, does mermaids, an' kills the
eternal soul of him! Sure, b'y! Didn't me own great-gran'father, who
sailed foreign viyages out o' Witless Bay, clap his own two eyes on to
one o' they desperate sea-critters one night he was standin' his trick
at the wheel, one day nort' o' Barbados? Sure, b'y! He heared a whisper
behind him, like a whisper o' music, and when he turned his head 'round
there she was, nat'ral as any girl o' the harbor, a-gleamin' her
beautiful, grand eyes at him in the moonshine. An' when he come ashore
didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside
the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"

"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a
mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."

"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the
other poor humans, then?"

At that moment the skipper approached.

"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye
kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."

The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied
the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of
the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The
skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which
had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most
part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her
physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of