make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers, and
of what was now going to happen.

"You see," she said, "that I know all about your troubles; and
you cannot doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a
time as you may remain with me. For this purpose, my honored
guests, I have ordered a banquet to be prepared. Fish, fowl,
and flesh, roasted, and in luscious stews, and seasoned, I
trust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served up. If your
appetites tell you it is dinner time, then come with me to the
festal saloon."

At this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite
overjoyed; and one of them, taking upon himself to be
spokesman, assured their hospitable hostess that any hour of
the day was dinner time with them, whenever they could get
flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it with. So the
beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of them
had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third
sprinkled a shower of water drops from her fingers' ends, and
the fourth had some other oddity, which I have forgotten), all
these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they
entered a magnificent saloon. It was built in a perfect oval,
and lighted from a crystal dome above. Around the walls were
ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crimson
and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions, which were
tasselled and fringed with gold cord. Each of the strangers was
invited to sit down; and there they were, two and twenty storm-
beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two and
twenty cushioned and canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous