As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears were
suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music--wild, unearthly melody
that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our
feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a
single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of
enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance,
only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the
time we were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to
enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce it a
trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, however, denied all
agency in the matter, but counseled us to "keep a close look-out on
the lee bow" if we wanted to see a mermaid. We had noticed a sort of
thrilling motion on the lower deck, not unlike the sensation produced
by the charge of an electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee
captain gravely assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts
to drag down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet--see if I
don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from the deck
and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the Lascars, leaning
over the bow. Half an hour afterward he returned, and with a merry
laugh laid in my lap two little brown fish, informing me that they
were singing-fish, and that the music we had heard had been produced
by shoals of these tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our
ship.
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