ay anything, for she was a good
way off, near the island, and she no sooner saw me than she turned and
made tracks for the back of the island where I couldn't see her. But I
tell you this, young sir, no woman or man either ever swam as she swam.
Have you seen a trout in a quiet pool wag its tail and go right
ahead--_how_, you didn't know; you only knew that 'twasn't in the one
place and 'twas in t'other?"

Caius nodded.

"Well," asked the old man with triumph in his voice, as one who capped
an argument, "did you ever see man or woman swim like that?"

"No," Caius admitted, "I never did--especially as to the wagging of the
tail."

"But she _hadn't_ a tail!" put in the old man eagerly, "for I saw her
the second day--that I'm coming to. She was more like a seal or walrus."

"But what became of her the first day?" asked Caius, with scientific
exactitude.

"Why, the end of her the first day was that she went behind the island.
Can you see behind the island? No." The old man giggled again at his own
logical way of putting things. "Well, no more could I see her; and home
I went, and I said nothink to nobody, for I wasn't going to have them
say I was doting."

"Yet it would be classical to dote upon a mermaid," Caius murmured. The
sight of the dim-eyed, decrepit old man before him gave exquisite humour
to the idea.

Morrison had already launched forth upon the story of the second day.

"Well, as I was telling you, I was that curious that next morning at
daybreak I comes here and squats behind those bushes, and a dreadful
fright I was in for fear my old woman would come and look for me and see
me squatting there." His old frame shook for a moment with the laugh he
gave to emphasize the situation, and he poked Caius with his finger.
"And I looked and I looked out on the gray water till I had the cramps."
Here he poked Caius again. "But I tell you, young sir, when I saw her
a-coming round from behind the bank, where I couldn't see jist where
she had come from, like as if she had come across the bay round this
point here, I thought no more of the cramps, but I jist sat on my heels,
looking with one eye to see that my old woman didn't come, and I watched
that 'ere thing, and it came as near as I could throw a stone, and I
tell you it was a girl with long hair, and it had scales, and an ugly
brown body, and swum about like a fish, jist moving, without making a
motion, from place to place for near an hour; and then it went