Fairy dreams or, Wanderings in Elf-land
fast asleep.
Some hours passed, and then Ernest awoke with a start, for a great
wave had broken over his little skiff and drenched him with water.
Sitting upright, he looked about him in silent amazement. During the
night the wind had suddenly risen, and in a few hours increased to a
gale. On board the ship, the sailors who were keeping watch had set
the great sails, glad enough to see them fill once more. But no one
had remembered or noticed the little boat towing astern, which, after
following quietly on for awhile, pulling harder and harder upon the
slender line which held it to the ship, suddenly snapped it in two,
and in a moment was left far behind.
So now, when Ernest sat up and looked about him, he saw nothing but
water; on every side, great black waves with white, foamy crests, came
rolling angrily toward him, as if they would swallow him up; and some
of them, like the one which had awakened him, even broke into the
little boat, so that for some time Ernest was too busy in baling out
the water to have time even to be frightened.
The rest of the night passed in this manner; but just before sunrise
the wind died away to little and less, until, as the first level rays
shot across the ocean, the calm was as intense as it had been the day
before.
The waves continued restless some hours longer; but before noon they
too had sunk to sleep, and the little boat with the lonely youth
remained motionless, the centre of a great, round water-plain extending
on every side to where the burning sky dipped down, trying in vain to
cool itself.
For many hours Ernest had suffered terribly from heat and thirst, and
now that the utter calm increased both, he thought he must surely die.
Wrapping himself again in the thick cloak, and covering his head from
the blistering rays of the sun, he lay many hours motionless in a sort
of swoon. When he recovered consciousness, night had come again; the
fierce sun had given way to the cool, pitying moon, which, round and
full, beamed kindly down upon him; and a little breath of air, not
enough to make the gentlest breeze, just rippled the surface of the
water, and gave a faint, delightful motion to the little boat.
Ernest, faint and exhausted, sat up and looked about him. The scene was
delightful, but he hardly knew it, his sufferings from thirst and fever
were so intense; he looked toward the east and shuddered,--a few hours
more and the sun would rise, burning and scorching all before him, and
Ernest felt that then he must die.
With a low moan he stretched himself again in the bottom of the boat,
and lay there still, with half-closed eyes, listening to the soft
ripple of the tiny wavelets upon the side, and soothed by the faint
motion of the little skiff.
Suddenly he perceived that this motion had increased; that it had
become a gentle, regular rocking, although the noise of the water
against the side was rather less than more. Raising his languid
eyes, what was Ernest’s astonishment to see a row of little white
hands clasping the edge of the boat on each side, and rocking it
as if it were a cradle. Softly putting out his own hand, Ernest
cautiously touched one of those nearest to him; yes, they were real
fingers,--cool, white, and soft.
Rising upon his elbow, the young man peeped over the gunwale of his
boat. Oh, what a singular picture met his view! The world beneath the
sea had come up to visit the world above the sea. Strange, beautiful
fishes, such as no man’s eye ever saw before, glittered and swam on
every side; great whales, white as milk, too cautious ever to appear
by day, moved in stately measure beneath the moon; the sea-serpent
undulated his miles of glossy length, coiling himself up, and suddenly
whirling into the air and down again in a great, gleaming arch to the
water; far away in lonely grandeur, vast, white, and motionless, lay
the great Kraken, that mysterious, traditional inhabitant of the sea,
only known to men through the wild stories which ancient mariners will
sometimes tell around the evening fire. Wonderful enough it was to see
all these; but Ernest hardly glanced at them,--for, close about his
boat on every side crowded beautiful forms, with fair, childlike faces
and long, golden hair, which floated and glittered upon the moon-lit
waves, as they swam gracefully hither and thither. Ernest knew them
at once; they were the mer-maidens, the children of the sea, of whom
he had often heard, and for whom he had often vainly gazed across the
midnight ocean.
These it were, who, grasping with white fingers the little boat, had
rocked it softly to the cadence of an inarticulate song. As the youth
arose and looked at them, they gently loosed their hold, and sunk
beneath the water; but in an instant he heard them again behind him,
and, turning suddenly, saw them surrounding a great sea-shell, white
without, and of an exquisite pink within, which they were softly moving
on across the water toward his own boat, while they sung in unison
their mysterious, wordless song. But Ernest neither looked nor listened
to the mer-maidens, for within the shell, robed in the rich abundance
of her own golden hair, reclined the loveliest creature that the youth
had ever seen, with fair, pale face and great, dreamy eyes, blue as the
sea itself. Upon her head was set a crown, and about her neck and
arms were strings of enormous pearls, perfect in form and color, and
yet no whiter or rounder than the throat and arms which they encircled.
In her hands she carried a little golden harp, and when she had
approached within a few feet of Ernest’s boat, gently motioning her
maidens to pause, she raised it and swept her tiny hand across the
strings; a faint, sweet sound, like summer wind sighing through summer
woods, met the young man’s ear, and then in a soft, low voice she sung.
The words were in the same unknown tongue with which the mer-maidens
had chanted his lullaby, but as Ernest listened they shaped themselves
into meaning in his mind; and this was the song of the sea-princess:--
Come with me! Come with me!
To the world beneath the sea.
There live we, with mirth and glee,
Oh, ’tis pleasant there to be!
Pearls so rare, jewels fair,
Gather we to deck our hair;
Toil nor care, dwell not there,
Come then, mortal, if thou dare!
The song was repeated over and over, and each moment Ernest longed
more to go and dwell in this fair world beneath the sea. At last the
shell-boat was pushed close to his own; and all the little white hands
of the mer-maidens, clasping one side of his skiff, tipped it more and
more, until half unconsciously he slid from his own to the boat of the
beautiful maiden, who clasped him in her arms, murmuring her soft song
dreamily into his ear, while the great pink shell began first slowly,
then more and more swiftly, to spin round and round, sinking at the
same time until it was countless fathoms beneath the sea.
Ernest awoke as from a dream, to find himself laid upon a couch
of soft, many colored sea-mosses, heaped high in the centre of a
grotto-like chamber, whose walls of red and white coral were curiously
cut, by the labor of the sword-fish employed as decorator in the royal
palace, into the delicate and fanciful images of all the beautiful
flowers and leaves which grow far beneath the sea, and are never seen
by men. A cool, green light diffused itself through the chamber, and
showed to Ernest the figure of the princess seated beside him, and
gazing at him with loving eyes.
“What is your name, fair queen?” asked the young man softly.
“I am the Princess Su-le-mair, daughter of the great King Maro,”
replied the maiden, a little proudly; but added, in a more tender
voice, “And you, beautiful mortal,--what do they call you, above there?”
“My name is Ernest; but no mortal will ever call me so again, for I
will live here always with you, beautiful Sulemair,” and the youth
timidly kissed the rose-red lips of the fair sea-maiden.
“Then come with me and see our palace,--your home, now,” said Sulemair,
bashfully drawing back, but holding out her cool, white hand to take
that of her lover.
So Ernest went, guided by the princess, from one curious and beautiful
room to another, until he had seen all the wonders of the palace in
which he was now to dwell. Then Sulemair proposed that he should come
with her to see her father and mother, who lived at some distance; for
each of the princes and princesses had a palace to themselves; and as
the royal family was very large, the king was obliged to keep a large
corps of sword-fish coral-cutters constantly at work.
The young couple found that King Maro was just presiding at his council
table, so that he could not receive them; but Queen Nymphia, Sulemair’s
mother, professed herself very much pleased with their visit, and
welcomed Ernest to the kingdom under the sea very warmly and gracefully.
After this, it being dinner time, the two returned to their own palace,
and spent the rest of the day very happily in telling each other the
history of their previous lives.
So the days went dreamily on. Sometimes Sulemair sung to her golden
harp love-songs, or ballads of sea-life; sometimes she and her maidens
danced with Ernest, who soon learned their strange and fanciful
figures, while a band of conchs, carefully graduated in tone, played
each on his own shell; sometimes the princess, or one of the maidens,
told strange stories of wonderful sights and romantic adventures in
their own country, to which Ernest replied with stories of the world
above the sea, which made the mer-maidens open their blue eyes wide
with astonishment.
These and other amusements filled the day; yet sometimes Ernest would
find time to wonder if matters went on above as they had done in his
own time, and to wish occasionally that he and Sulemair could make a
little visit to earth, just to see how it looked once more. He never
mentioned this fancy to his beautiful bride, however, lest she should
think him discontented; but keeping it to himself, he dwelt upon it
more and more, until at last he thought of hardly any thing else, and
at times was so absent and dreamy that he forgot to listen to the songs
and stories, or to dance when it was his turn to do so.
Sulemair was not slow to notice and to suspect the cause of this
alteration in her beloved Ernest, and she, too, grew silent,
thoughtful, and abstracted. At last, one day, Ernest, rousing suddenly
from a reverie, found the princess seated beside him gazing into his
face, while great tears, rolling down her cheeks and dropping off her
chin, fell in round, white pearls at her feet.
“Dearest, sweetest, what is the matter?” asked Ernest, anxiously; for
he had never seen the princess cry before.
“It is--it is, that Ernest wishes to leave me,” sobbed the poor little
sea-nymph.
“Leave you! leave my Sulemair!” exclaimed Ernest, kissing her over and
over; “I never dreamed of such a thing. But if you and I together,
dearest, could make just a little visit up above,--eh, Susu?”
“Listen, dear,” said the princess, sitting up, and wiping her eyes;
“for I have something to tell you. I never can visit the world above
and return here--never. But I have one chance to exchange this life for
that, if I choose, though I never thought of wishing it before. Are
you sure, very sure, dear Ernest, that you wish me to come too? Will
it not be enough if you can return alone? Perhaps, after a while, you
would grow tired of your poor Sulemair, and then what should she do,
all alone in a strange world?”
It required several words and a great many kisses to convince the
princess of the absurdity of this idea; but at last she continued:--
“We daughters of the royal house have a privilege not shared by any