e
far resting-place. I fell into a mood of real sympathy with stories
about mermaids. I think Peter felt the change which had come over me.

"Anthony O'Flaherty," said Peter, "was a young man when he saw them
first. It was in the little bay back west of the island, and my mother
never rightly knew what he was doing there in the middle of the night;
but there he was. It was the bottom of a low spring tide, and there's
rocks off the end of the bay that's uncovered at the ebb of the springs.
You've maybe seen them."

I have seen them, and Peter knew it well I have seen more of them than
I want to. There was an occasion when Peter and I lay at anchor in that
bay, and a sudden shift of wind set us to beating out at three o'clock
in the morning. The rocks were not uncovered then, but the waves were
breaking fiercely over them. We had little room for tacking, and I am
not likely to forget the time we went about a few yards to windward of
them. The stretch of wild surf under our lee looked ghastly white in the
dim twilight of the dawn. Peter knew what I was thinking.

"It was calm enough that night Anthony O'Flaherty was there," he said,
"and there was a moon shining, pretty near a full moon, so Anthony
could see plain. Well, there was three of them in it, and they playing
themselves."

"Mermaids?"

This time my voice expressed full sympathy. The sea all round us was
rising in queer round little waves, though there was no wind. The boom
snatched at the blocks as the boat rocked The sail was ghostly white.
The vision of a mermaid would not have surprised me greatly.

"The beautifulest ever was seen," said Peter, "and neither shift nor
shirt on them, only just themselves, and the long hair of them. Straight
it was and black, only for a taste of green in it. You wouldn't be
making a mistake between the like of them and seals, not if you'd seen
them right the way Anthony O'Flaherty did."

Peter made this reflection a little bitterly. I was afraid the
recollection of my unfortunate remark about seals might have stopped him
telling the story, but it did not.

"Once Anthony had seen them," he said, "he couldn't rest content without
he'd be going to see them again. Many a night he went and saw neither
sight nor light of them, for it was only at spring tides that they'd be
there, on account of the rocks not being uncovered any other time.
But at the bottom of the low springs they were there right enough, and
sometimes they'd b