"Oh, bunch!" he moaned; "it's horribly like the real thing; and here I come headlong, as they do in the story books----"
He caught a crab that landed him in a graceful parabola in the bow, where he lay biting at the air to recover his breath. Then his boat's nose plowed into the sandy neck of land; he clambered to his feet, jumped out, and ran headlong into the belt of trees which screened the singer. Speed and gait recalled the effortless grace of the kangaroo; when he encountered logs and gullies he rose grandly, sailing into space, landing with a series of soft bounces, which presently brought him to the other side of the woods.
And there, what he beheld, what he heard, almost paralyzed him. Weak- kneed, he passed a trembling hand over his incredulous eyes; with the courage of despair, he feebly pinched himself. Then for sixty sickening seconds he closed his eyes and pressed both hands over his ears. But when he took his hands away and opened his terrified eyes, the exquisitely seductive melody, wind blown from the water, thrilled him in every fiber; his wild gaze fell upon a distant, glittering shape--white-armed, golden- haired, fish-tailed, slender body glittering with silvery scales.
The low rippling wash of the tide across the pebbly shore was in his ears; the salt wind was in his throat. He saw the sun flash on golden comb and mirror, as her snowy fingers caressed the splendid masses of her hair; her song stole sweetly seaward as the wind veered.
A terrible calm descended upon him.
"This is interesting," he said aloud.
A sickening wave of terror swept him, but he straightened up, squaring his shoulders.
"I may as well face the fact," he said, "that I, Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport, L.I., and recently in my right mind, am now, this very moment, looking at a--a mermaid in Long Island Sound!"
He shuddered; but he was sheer pluck all through. Teeth might chatter, knees smite together, marrow turn cold; nothing on earth or Long Island could entirely stampede Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point.
His clutch on his self-control in any real crisis never slipped; his mental steering-gear never gave way. Again his pallid lips moved in speech:
"The--thing--to--do," he said very slowly and deliberately, "is to swim out and--and touch it. If it dissolves into nothing I'll probably feel better----"
He began to remove coat, collar, and shoes, forcing himself to talk calmly all the while.
"The thing to do," he went on dully, "is to swim over there and get a look at it. Of course, it isn't really there. As for drowning--it really doesn't matter.... In the midst of life we are in Long Island.... And, if it _is_ there--I c-c-can c-capture it for the B-B-Bronx----"
Reason tottered; it revived, however, as he plunged into the s. w.[A] of Oyster Bay and struck out, silent as a sea otter for the shimmering shape on the ruddy rocks.
[Footnote A: Sparkling Waters or Sacred Waters.]
Flavilla was rehearsing with all her might; her white throat swelled with the music she poured forth to the sky and sea; her pretty fingers played with the folds of burnished hair; her gilded hand-mirror flashed, she gently beat time with her tail.
So thoroughly, so earnestly, did she enter into the spirit of the siren she was representing that, at moments, she almost wished some fisherman might come into view--just to see whether he'd really go overboard after her.
However, audacious as her vagrant thoughts might be, she was entirely unprepared to see a human head, made sleek by sea water, emerge from the floating weeds almost at her feet.
"Goodness," she said faintly, and attempted to rise. But her fish tail fettered her.
"Are you real!" gasped Kingsbury.
"Y-yes.... Are you?"
"Great James!" he half shouted, half sobbed, "are you _human?_"
"V-very. Are _you?_"
He clutched at the weedy rock and dragged himself up. For a moment he lay breathing fast, water dripping from his soaked clothing. Once he feebly touched the glittering fish tail that lay on the rock beside him. It quivered, but needle and thread had been at work there; he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again she was looking about for a likely place to launch herself into the bay; in fact, she had already started to glide toward the water; the scraping of the scales aroused him, and he sat up.
"I heard singing," he said dreamily, "and I climbed a tree and saw--you! Do you blame me for trying to corroborate a thing like _you?_"
"You thought I was a _real_ one?"
"I thought that I thought I saw a real one."
She looked at him hopefully.
"Tell me, _did_ my singing compel you to swim out here?"
"I don't know what compelled me."
"But--you _were_ compelled?"
"I--it seems so----"
"O-h!" Flushed, excited, laughing, she clasped her hands under her chin and gazed at him.
"To think," she said softly, "that you believed me to be a real siren, and that my beauty and my singing actually did lure you to my rock! Isn't it exciting?"
He looked at her, then turned red:
"Yes, it is," he said.
Hands still clasped together tightly beneath her rounded chin, she surveyed him with intense interest. He was at a disadvantage; the sleek, half-drowned appearance which a man has who emerges from a swim does not exhibit him at his best.
But he had a deeper interest for Flavilla; her melody and loveliness had actually lured him across the water to the peril of her rocks; this human being, this man creature, seemed to be, in a sense, hers.
"Please fix your hair," she said, handing him her comb and mirror.
"My hair?"
"Certainly. I want to look at you."
He thought her request rather extraordinary, but he sat up and with the aid of the mirror, scraped away at his wet hair, parting it in the middle and combing it deftly into two gay little Mercury wings. Then, fishing in the soaked pockets of his knickerbockers, he produced a pair of smart pince-nez, which he put on, and then gazed up at her.
"Oh!" she said, with a quick, indrawn breath, "you _are_ attractive!"
At that he turned becomingly scarlet.
Leaning on one lovely, bare arm, burnished hair clustering against her cheeks, she continued to survey him in delighted approval which sometimes made him squirm inwardly, sometimes almost intoxicated him.
"To think," she murmured, "that _I_ lured _you_ out here!"
"I _am_ thinking about it," he said.
She laid her head on one side, inspecting him with frankest approval.
"I wonder," she said, "what your name is. I am Flavilla Carr."
"Not one of the Carr triplets!"
"Yes--but," she added quickly, "I'm not married. Are you?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" he said hastily. "I'm Henry Kingsbury, of Pebble Point, Northport----"
"Master and owner of the beautiful but uncertain _Sappho?_ Oh, tell me, _are_ you the man who has tipped over so many times in Long Island Sound? Because I--I adore a man who has the pluck to continue to capsize every day or two."
"Then," he said, "you can safely adore me, for I am that yachtsman who has fallen off the _Sappho_ more times than the White Knight fell off his horse."
"I--I _do_ adore you!" she exclaimed impulsively.
"Of course, you d-d-don't mean that," he stammered, striving to smile.
"Yes--almost. Tell me, you--I know you are not like other men! _You_ never have had anything to do with a Destyn-Carr machine, have you?"
"Never!"
"Neither have I.... And so you are not in love--are you?"
"No."
"Neither am I. Oh, I am so glad that you and I have waited, and not become engaged to somebody by machinery.... I wonder whom you are destined for."
"Nobody--by machinery."
She clapped her hands. "Neither am I. It is too stupid, isn't it? I _don't_ want to marry the man I ought to marry. I'd rather take chances with a man who attracts me and who is attracted by me.... There was, in the old days--before everybody married by machinery--something not altogether unworthy in being a siren, wasn't there?... It's perfectly delightful to think of your seeing me out here on the rocks, and then instantly plunging into the waves and tearing a foaming right of way to what might have been destruction!"
Her flushed, excited face between its clustering curls looked straight into his.
"It _was_ destruction," he said. His own voice sounded odd to him. "Utter destruction to my peace of mind," he said again.
"You--don't think that you love me, do you?" she asked. "That would be too--too perfect a climax.... _Do_ you?" she asked curiously.
"I--think so."
"Do--do you _know_ it?" He gazed bravely at her: "Yes."
She flung up both arms joyously, then laughed aloud:
"Oh, the wonder of it! It is too perfect, too beautiful! You really love me? Do you? Are you _sure_?"
"Yes.... Will you try to love me?"
"Well, you know that sirens don't care for people.... I've already been engaged two or three times.... I don't mind being engaged to you."
"Couldn't you care for me, Flavilla?"
"Why, yes. I do.... Please don't touch me; I'd rather not. Of course, you know, I couldn't really love you so quickly unless I'd been subjected to one of those Destyn-Carr machines. You know that, don't you? But," she added frankly, "I wouldn't like to have you get away from me. I--I feel like a tender-hearted person in the street who is followed by a lost cat----"