CHAPTER V.

'White Faces Seemed to Rise and Ride atop of the Foaming Billows'

Just so, it is said, the sailors cannot look away from the fair, wonderful creatures tossing their rich hair, beckoning wildly, singing and singing with a sweetness that is not natural or earthly, until, what with the beauty and luring, and voices of honey, the poor sailormen are close against the rocks, and do not seem to know that they are charmed or harmed when the waters close softly over them.

I do not know whether I have ever seen a mermaid or not. But when I took that dangerous voyage up into the storm circle, I saw strange shapes that I never saw before, and heard sounds that were new to my ear. Two or three times I thought I saw streaming hair, and white faces seemed to rise and ride atop of the foaming billows.

But when one is very much excited, will not imagination produce almost any kind of an object that happens to come into the mind? Ah, I am afraid so. Still, there are both Folks and fishes that believe in the mermaids and their songs, and what am I that I should dare dispute them!

Yet—let me whisper—I have heard that Folks who do not know so very much, will tell about "goblins," "spooks," and "catch-ums," and whenever there is talk about the mermaids and the sirens, I think of those Folks who believe in creatures that "never were."

But it would not do to talk in my watery home as if I had no belief in mermaids, because, you see, as most fishes have never been with Folks, and learned a thing or two from them, they do not know any better than to believe in these sweet, dangerous creatures.

So, now, here came Dolphy, with flapping fins, wild eye, and his story of a mermaid's cave. Then a party was made up to go and see the rare and amazing place.

Well, it did look as if some creatures of surprising taste and skill had brought together a collection of shells such as are never seen above the surface of the sea, and formed, indeed, a cave fit for a mermaid's home.

I know little about time, but it must have been days and nights I stayed in the enchanting place, roving hither and thither, rubbing my fins against the soft, smooth shells, and half wondering how they really came to be grouped together in such shining rows.

And the colors! And the shapes! Some were well-opened on the inside, and looked as if entirely covered with pink enamel. They were of clear, ivory white, pinkish white, pale rose, deep rose, pale yellow, or straw color, orange yellow, blue and green mixed in glossy sheen, shades of pink running into rich reds, purples and grayish pinks, making the fair, sweet mother-o'-pearl.

Some were cup-shaped, having deep hollows. Should you hold your ear fairly shut into one of these, it is said you would hear always as often as you so held it, the roaring of the ocean. And a roaring sound you would hear, in very truth. Yet, let me tell you! Take a common china cup, shut your ear into it, and the same roaring will be heard.

Is that old ocean? No, it is simply the sound of your own blood coursing through your veins.

A wide-awake Frenchman once wrote that, could you look within your own body and see the engines pumping, the valves opening and shutting, the pipes working, and the whole machinery in action, it would surprise and perhaps scare you into the bargain.

We have got a little off the track, but it is well to know the facts about these things. Now we will return to the shells.

Look at that splendid one shaped like a bowl, but with pink lips rolled back, through which can be seen changing tints of pink and white. Here is one that is oblong, lined with rose enamel, but having strange horns pointing out at one side.

See that beauty, wide open and shaped like a saucer. Dear me, hold it a little toward the light, and there gleams every color of the rainbow on the polished surface. Here is another, striped with hair-like lines in red, yellow, blue, and brown. There is a fan, wide open, beautifully polished; it has no handle, but its coloring is in nearly all tints, and changeable in the light. What a lovely thing is this heart-shaped shell, with a line along the centre, and beautifully blending colors on either side. There are many of these scattered around.

Now, how can I describe these singular yet perfect shapes banked up against rocks that are completely hidden on the inside of the cave?

Over there is a funny, snarly head, with fine shreds of hair laced over a smooth shell. Ah, what gleams of colored light shoot through the hair! Here is a bird's nest on a bar, lying side of a wide fan, shaped like a palm leaf; in the plaitings are curled all colors, pink, blue, yellow, and green.

This shell is like a foot with eighteen or twenty toes, smooth, shining, and of flesh-like tints. This is like a bat's wing, with lines and webs finely tinted. Look at that enamelled jug with a pipe at the top. Near by is a perfect leaf on a small branch.

Do see this worm, ringed around with dark purple stripes. Isn't it queer? In that corner is a trumpet, splendidly colored inside. That shape over there must be a fool's cap, one mass of sheeny tints inside. Here are beautifully rounded little bowls, all scalloped around the top; ah, see them glisten and change shades as the light strikes them!

See the beetle-bugs, with horns sticking out in every direction. And if here isn't a perfect shape of a lady's slipper! The lady should wear it inside out, so all could see its exquisite mother-o'-pearl.

Here are shells exactly like the feathery wing of a bird, and how birdie would enjoy snuggling his soft head against the exquisite smoothness of these shells!

Is that a large carrot split lengthwise? It looks like it, but no carrot split along its length ever brought to light such rainbows as glint along these. Those shells looking so much like rattles would amuse a lot of babies if they could play in the mermaid's cave. They would try to catch the fine colors, and might cry when they changed and changed, and then appeared to dance away.

Those serpents, some half uncoiled, some out straight, will not bite. Those flashes are not from dangerous eyes, but are only fine shell tints.

Here are a lot of squat jars for holding small ornaments. They are ornaments themselves. Are they not? And what queer combs with three shining rows of teeth, each tooth a point of color.

Really, I might as well stop. There would be no use in trying to describe a third of these shapes, and as to coloring, with all I have said, you can have but a faint idea of the soft, brilliant, ever changing hues and gleams in the mermaid's cave.

MY GARDENS

Long as I have talked of shells, I must say a word or two more about shells that are used as stones.

When I was on land a little while, I noticed in front of a few houses, walks, that I knew at a glance were made from clam-shells. So I knew that Folks must have machines for pounding up shells. Such a beautiful, clean, white walk as they make!

Then, before some fine-looking houses were great conch-shells, oblong and twisted in shape, but pink and smooth inside. Many of them were placed around lovely fountains, or urns of flowers.

But I want to tell of one very beautiful and costly kind of ornament that is made from some conch-shells, pronounced "konk."

Romans and Greeks, but especially the Greeks, used to cut "cameos" from the onyx-stone. And men skilled in cutting fine stones and jewels have cut most exquisite cameos, or faces, from the kind of conch-shell that has two layers, one dark, the other light.

The word "cameo" is said to mean one stone upon another. The "queen conch" is a splendid shell, with two distinct layers, one white, the other pink. Out of the white layer is carved perhaps the face of a woman, with a crown of flowers on her head, or it may be the head of a knight, with a helmet on.

But think of the fineness of the tools that must be used, the tiny files and chisels in carving the lovely, delicate shells. The shell cameos with the pink lower stone and white upper figure, are most expensive of all; other shells have brown or black lower layers, and these are not as choice.

But when you see your grandma or great-auntie wearing a lovely old-fashioned breastpin, bound around with gold, and holding a pink stone, shining like crystal, with a white carved head or other figure standing out from the lower stone, you may know it is a very valuable ornament, and was probably made from one of the finest shells found in the sea. Imitations are made from porcelain, but very likely grandma's or great-auntie's will be the real conch-shell.

Perhaps you did not know that there are fair and beautiful gardens in my watery home. You may have picked up sprays or bunches of seaweed when running along the beach, and some were perhaps quite pretty, while others had turned brown and looked much like leather.

Would you like to come with Lord Dolphin and take a swim through an ocean garden? You would doubtless see such a sight as you had never dreamed could be seen down in the blue water.

All right, I'll turn into a fairy godfather, clap you on to my back, give you the lungs of a mermaid, to prevent your choking in the water, and then, come on! Or, rather, I should say, come down!

"Why, why! A fairylike scene indeed!" you cry.

Now you have not taken on "the evil eye" in coming to the bottom of the sea, but you have taken a "fish eye." Folks usually hate fishy eyes, but no matter, you couldn't see the first thing down here with your own natural peepers, so be thankful that for a time you can see with eyes like mine.

Now, this is not a coral grove, it is a garden of flowers, and when you exclaim again, "Oh, but I had no idea of this!" I should have to reply, "Of course you hadn't; no more had I of the strange and beautiful things on the land, until I had to live there a little while."

Folks call these flowers, such as they have seen of them, weeds, seaweeds. And I suppose they have to come under that name, as they are not planted from seeds, but are a wild growth. Ah, but some great Planter or Gardener surely put all these wonderful shapes and splendid tints in the soft earth of a sea-garden. And it is all so blithe and gay!

Here are nearly all the shapes in bushes and almost trees that you have in your garden on land. And as to flowers, there are leaves, spires, cups, bells, tassels, very much such as you see in your garden at home.

See these beautiful crimson leaves, as large as the top of a small table, and cut in such fine, even scallops around the edges, and here is one with a great pad of yellow right on the crimson. My! My! is it not colored richly?

Here are leaves shooting out like rafts, thick, like the leaves of a rubber-tree, but larger and of a deep red. You might take a sail on one of them. And here is a bush, shooting upright from its muddy bed, all covered with pink sprays, on which are pink blossoms. Doesn't it make you think of a syringa bush? Only these flowers are pink.

Next comes this plant with a large olive green stem covered thickly with branches, bearing flowers resembling pink roses. Were this plant taken to the church some Sunday morning and placed on the pulpit-stand, you may believe that after the service Folks would go crowding about the altar, eager to find out its name and whence it came.

What a clucking of surprise there would be when it was told that not from any hothouse whatever, but from the depths of the ocean came the full, lovely sea-roses.

Are these sprays of pink coral? No, they are sea-rods and branches. If you pinch the thick stems, water will ooze out, for they are partly hollow, like the pond-lily stem.

I do not wonder you look with questioning surprise at that next plant. It is like a mass of purple bushes, a very sweet growth rather hard to describe. All through the delicate branches are what look like small dark berries, seen through a mist of pinkish, hairy spires.

Don't start. These merry fishes darting through the next clump of bushes have only come to smell of the carnation pinks the bushes bear. Are they not strangely like your garden carnations?

See the fishes nip at those singular pink flowers with a thick fringe hanging from the edges. It is a shame to spoil them, but some fishes always seem to think that graceful fringe droops down on purpose for them to peck at.

Now if the baby were only here, you could seat him on these broad, flat leaves, with delicate spires all along the edges, and all of so deep a crimson they surely would attract any child.

What a queer flower! like the backbone of a fish with all the little bones at the side standing out stiff and pointed, and all in pinks and purples.

Right in the midst of another plot of thick, flat leaves rises a mass of pink sea-lilies, and they are beautiful; but do examine the next bed of leaves. Are they not curious? A thick, hollow-looking stem goes through the middle of them, and on one side of the stem they are a deep pink, on the other side, yellow.

Here are flowers shaped like horns and trumpets. What a forest of pinks, greens, and yellows! And here are the greens. Such greens as you have never seen before.

Now suppose you were going to have a party. What decorations you could have if only the ocean blooms would keep fresh for you to use. There would be masses of fine furze that would be perfectly beautiful to crowd over the pictures; silky threads that, placed on creeping green plants, would look lovely carried along the table; yellow flowers in the midst of masses of fine sea-mosses, and sea-ferns would make your little mates wonder where the fresh, strange things grew.

And there could he yards and yards of ribbons. Ribbons? Yes, long, long sprays of yellowish green sea-ribbon, four or five inches wide, going down to narrower ones not more than an inch in width.

Perhaps you would like some sea-thistles. Here they are, in thick bunches, fine and hairy, in faint, fair shades of green. And what can this be that looks so much like a sponge? Ah, it is a tuft of moss with green spires shooting up in the middle.

Take care! Here are bunches of cactus with prickly leaves. Look out! don't catch your toe in those sea-ferns. Even that sweet green maiden-hair fern might pin down your foot so firmly that it would take a fish's sharp tooth to set you free.

You may ask, why are not these beautifully colored and curiously shaped things brought on shore and sold, as they might be, for much money? And why are they not at least put where Folks can see, learn about them, and admire them?

But wait a moment; what would be the effect if any one took a bunch of your garden roses, pinks, or lilies, put them under water, and kept them there? They would very soon be a drooping, shapeless mass. They are formed for a different element, and could not nourish under water, especially salt water.

Just so ocean-flowers, and sea-tints can only live in their own element, which is not air, but water. And the faces on our water-pansies—for we have them—would soon fade in what to them would be lifeless air, just as the garden pansies would lose their bright faces in the salt sea.

Great quantities of seaweeds float ashore and are often dried and used as fuel, or perhaps are put around garden plants to make them grow.

But nothing that grows on the land, or in the water, can exchange places one with the other and keep alive. It is all very curious, and more than I can understand. Yet every creature and every plant is fitted to the place it grows in, and is natural to it. The food, the flowers, and the land for the use of Folks, and the food, the plants, and the water for the use of fishes, are just what the nature of each requires. What wisdom!

MY TREASURE GROUNDS

Are you tired? No? Well, that is no great wonder. It is ever so much easier to glide through the water on the broad back of a great fish than to ride horseback, or in a car.

My sails or fins flap quietly to and fro, the water parts readily to make us a path, no rough winds blow away your hat, there is no danger way down here that a boat will bang against us, and roll you off into a cavern or a cave.

Now I am taking you into deeper water, which still is not so very deep, but I want to show you some other strange things in the world I live in.

Here we go sailing in and out of rocks, but do not be alarmed, I know them all. Perhaps you wonder what it is that we keep pressing against, something soft and smooth that sends extra sprays of water over us. What can it be?

Well, now, put on your thinking-cap. What does your mother wash the baby with? What does Michael wash the carriage with? And what is that object in the wire holder in the bath-tub?

"Ah, a sponge!" you exclaim. Yes, and here is where they grow. "What, sponges grow?" you ask. Certainly. And just as with the coral, it took Folks a long time to find out whether sponges were plants, shrubs, or insects.

Now it is decided that the sponge is an animal growth. And the same as with coral, the tiny creature that it starts from dies, and out from the skeleton, or frame, branches the sponge that sometimes grows very large, and sometimes is of a kind that remains small. One may be as big as a mop, others no larger than an egg.

Down in the blue Mediterranean Sea are found the best sponges that grow. They are called "horny sponges," and grow in great masses, fine, yet tough and durable. A sponge from the Mediterranean, called the "Turkey sponge," will cost three times as much as a coarser, more brittle one from other waters. They are porous, or full of little holes and hollows.

We fishes like to bang against the sponges and feel the sudden spray dash over us. Water we have all around and about us, but a shower-bath is not as common a thing.

When you buy a sponge, it is round, flat, or cone-shaped. Now see what they look like under water. Here is a little tree, you say. Oh, no, it is only a mass of sponges piled together and branching out as they grow.

Here are fans, arches, tiny caves, and many different shapes forming a sponge-garden. Queer, isn't it? Oh, lots of things are queer until you learn about them.

Would you like to see how I wash myself? Don't laugh so loud, you might scare the fishes. I know very well that it seems to you as if I was washing or bathing all the time, but there! Some kind of a water-bug has plumped right down onto my head, and left a lot of sticky sand on it, that the water does not wash away.

Now don't be alarmed. I won't let you be swept from my back. I am only going to wash my head. See me swim directly under this mass of sponge, swaying out from a rock. There will be no bits of sand clinging to me after I have been sponged a few moments.

Here is a sponge that looks as if almost as large as your sun when it rises out of the water, but if you squeeze that fellow dry—the sponge, not the sun—it will not begin to be the size it is now. You could press it into a bowl of moderate size when dry, but then take it to the pump or the faucet, fill it with water, and my, what a balloon!

Sponges were once called "worm-nests," and were thought to be a mere kind of seaweed. But looked at under the sea, it would be known at once that they are neither nest nor weed.

Once in awhile sponges seem to spring directly up from the mud without anything to cling to, but generally they are fastened to rocks or large stones, and spread out and out from them. Here they look so much like a kind of herb, that Folks who make a study of things in nature, and are called naturalists, for a long time took them to be a kind of sea-plant, and for years it was a puzzle as to just what they were.

All are full of pores or layers of small cells, and some are quite pretty from having a fringe about the cells like eyelashes. There are others curiously shaped, looking like coral sprays, and here and there they look like helmets; then there is another form that seems to have long fingers running out, and is called "mermaid's gloves."

The form called "Venus flower-basket," large and basket-shaped, might answer for a mermaid's work-basket, and hold her thimble, scissors, and thread. You had better take care! A mermaid may be near this very moment, and hear you laughing. And remember, she could spin you round from one end of the sea to another, then leave you high and dry on a big rock in the middle of the ocean.

Now, on what do sponges feed? Dear sakes, as if they fed on anything! Yet they do. Although they branch and bunch out in the forms described, yet they do not roam about, but only float or swim out as far as they can stretch themselves while firmly fastened to a rock. Here they take in specks or particles that float through the water; they pass through the open pores of the body, and answer for food. The water constantly passing through them serves to refresh and keep them round and healthy.

Here we come to a perfect thicket of sponges, and see the fishes playing "tag" all around and about them. There! that sly little fish, like a salt water pickerel, nipped the tail of that great clumsy porpoise—porpus—so hard, I heard the big fish grunt. The teeth of a pickerel are fearfully long and sharp.

Oh! Oh! What is that most beautiful thing we see shining with a faint, sweet glow, down at the bottom of the sea? It is in plain sight, nestled in the heart of a conch-shell. It is round, has a milk-like murkiness, yet pinky, changing lights like tiny stars, that glint and gleam as you look upon it.

Now believe me! Of all the treasures of the sea I have told you of or shown you, this is far and away the most precious.

It is a pearl. Only once in a great while will so perfect and so valuable a gem be found near my deep water home. And although we are not so very far east, yet it would be called an "Orient," or an "Eastern pearl."

Perhaps it has floated in its polished pink bed from a far eastern sea. I told you a little while ago that I must explain what an oyster had to do with Folks that sported too many jewels, and why it might be amused at the sight.

Did you know that inside of an oyster-shell grew the lovely, costly pearls that Folks will give a great deal of money for? Why, Queen Victoria of England had a Scotch pearl that cost two hundred dollars. Queens and princes, rich Folks, jewellers, and dealers in precious stones, will give great sums of money for necklaces, brooches, or rings that have in them the precious Oriental pearls.

I had to listen very hard to find out what I did about pearls. But I found that they have been known, talked of, and written about, almost ever since the beginning of the world.

Oyster-beds are generally much nearer the shore than most kinds of shells. It is said to be when an oyster gets restless or uneasy that a strange substance enters the edge of the shell, and after a time a pearl is formed. And while many pearls are found in oyster-shells, they also are often found fastened to the pink bosom of a conch-shell.

There are black pearls of much value, but though rare, they are never half as beautiful as a white or pink one. Some pink pearls are very lovely, and when large-sized, are also very expensive.

The pearl we see lying here is a splendid white one, and my! the money it would bring! Pick up that shell, carry it with you to a jeweller, and see the dollars the fair round gem will bring to your purse. You could buy yourself beautiful clothes, or a pony, or could have with it a fine party, flowers, favors, treat and all.

What? Don't dare to? Oh, me, me, what a little coward! I can't pick it up very well. If I took it in my mouth, down my throat it would go. If I tried to catch it up with a fin, over into the water it would bounce.

Never mind. Look at the sweetly beautiful conch-shell, with the splendid gem resting so softly on its pink, polished side. And let me tell you what I think.

The opinion of a fish, even a great lordly one, may not be worth much, but to me that exquisitely lovely stone, reposing on that exquisitely lovely shell, is a far more beautiful thing to look upon than the jewel ever could be when fitted into the costliest setting of gold.

Now it is just as it was made, and I think that Whoever formed and set that pearl knew more about real beauty and fitness, and what is simple, natural, and very beautiful, than all the Folks and jewellers in the world.

Look at that white splendor. Don't you agree with me?

WHAT I SAW ONE DAY

Now I do not know how brave an English lord may be or how much it may take to scare him, but I, Lord Dolphin, inhabitant of the great Mediterranean Sea, was scared nearly out of my wits and skin by the sight I saw one day.

But there is this to comfort me: if I was a coward at the sight, there were plenty of other creatures in the sea to keep me company. Mercy on us! Such a scuttling and rushing, such a whisking and a whacking, flying and plunging, I for one never saw before. There was actually a chorus of flapping fins and thumping tails as we raced for our lives.

Was it a steam-engine or a monster boiler that was coming right down from upper regions into our midst? Or, had some new sea-monster fallen from the skies to drive us from our hunting and fishing grounds?

We knew something about sea-lions, the huge creature that you may have seen at the Zoo, or in a tank at the park, lifting itself like an enormous sea-horse, and roaring like the animal whose name it bears. But a sea-lion would not have cut through the water from way above. It would have come steering along like a great black vessel, puffing and blowing, while all the time it would have been a creature of the sea, and we should have known it, and not have been so terrified.

Or, had a whale come bearing down from upper waters, as they sometimes do, there would have been a disturbance first, made by the spouting and slashing that our instinct at once would have told us came from some monster of the deep.

Or, again, had it been the hulk of a vessel that could not stand some violent storm, oh, yes, we should have known what that was, too. But now, off tore the fishes, mad with terror, big fishes, little fishes, fat fellows, lean fellows, pleasant ones, and grumblers.

I laughed, yes, with all my fright I had to laugh at such a funny sight. I was behind what Folks call "whole schools of fishes," only they speak of "a school of fish," meaning many of one kind, but the madcap crowd I looked upon was made up of almost every size and sort.

'Off Tore the Fishes, Mad With Terror'

I saw a porpoise—porpus—my enormous cousin, all of fifteen feet long, crowd in midst a multitude of swift little swimmers, as if he meant to make them help in spinning him through the water faster than he could go by himself. Then on the back of another Dolphin, I saw a crowd of little fishes that seemed so stiff with fear, they had been knowing enough to cling to the back of the great fish, making a boat of him to bear them to a place of safety.

Paddling sideways, I caught a glimpse of the flying-fish that had been my tormentor. All at once I stopped short.

Now they say that some Folks are very curious. I do not mean that they are odd or amusing to look at. But they have curiosity, and want to peer and pry into things. It is not at all nice to want to find out all about other Folks' affairs. It belongs to a poor, mean nature to want to do that. But to want to inquire into matters for the sake of getting true knowledge is right and worthy even for a fish.

And suddenly I had determined to see just what that amazing creature could be. If it caught and swallowed me alive, it might, but—it would take a pretty big swallow to make away with Lord Dolphin. I confess to going to work very much like a sneak. But it was quite easy, seeing all the other fishes had made off and left me a clear field, to hide midst a bed of tall sea-bushes.

So, very gently back I paddled, with motion slow and noiseless, to the region where the monster had come down.

How shall I describe it? In the first place, I had never seen such a shape before. The time when I was borne aloft on high waves, and looked into a ship's cabin, I saw forms something like unto this one in some respects, but, dear sakes, not with such hideous parts! But now, to name at once and describe afterwards,—

It was adiver!

The diver belongs to the Folks family, but, bless us, his rig! Imagine, if you can, a black object, with a great bunchy machine of a head, and for the rest, a mass of fixtures, such as would puzzle a far more stupid creature than a Dolphin to make out.

I have seen a diver many times since then, and am now able to tell a little about the fantastic-looking being. Of course, there is very much more to be known, but if you remember what I say, it will give you some idea of a diver's outfit that may linger in your mind, to be added to as you grow older.

First, then, close to his skin are warm woollen garments, sometimes two or even three sets of them. If the weather is cold, he may have on two or three pairs of warm stockings. How would you like being bundled up in that way? Yet that is only the beginning.

Close to his head is a woollen cap coming down over his ears. Thick shoulder-pads keep his outside suit from grazing or hurting, and it may be that other pads are about his body. He next goes into an outside suit of India rubber, covered both inside and outside with a tanned twill which is water-proof, and the rubber itself has been treated in a way to make it very hard and lasting. There is a double collar about the neck, of tough, sheet rubber, and one is to draw well up about the neck.

He must have assistance in getting into these rigid clothes, for it is hard working the arms into the stiff sleeves, and forcing the hands through cuffs which are made to expand or let out as they are drawn on, then close tight in some odd way with rubber rings and joints at the wrist, making the sleeves perfectly air tight.

Great care is taken in dressing the diver. Everything must fit perfectly, every screw must be properly wound in, every strap and buckle made fast, or the poor diver may be in great danger. His breastplate of copper is fastened on with metal clasps or bolts. A fixture at his back steadies the weights both back and front, weighing forty pounds each. These weights, it must be, are in some way supported by the ropes with which they let him down.

Such boots! Stout leather, with soles of lead, securely strapped on, and weighing at least twenty pounds each. A band fitted about his waist is kept in place by strong braces.

Then his helmet! Tinned copper, and full of screws, pipes, and hooks. On the face part were three openings as in a lantern, in which were screwed plate-glasses, or bull's-eyes. These, of course, were to see through, and stood out like little telescopes, or half-tumblers, with brass frames around them called "guards" which protect the glass, that is thick and strong.

There were also queer valves, or tubes, in the helmet for letting out bad air, yet so contrived that no water could get in. A hook was on either side, through which ropes must pass.

The diver can breathe while under water by means of an air-pipe, and by pulling on a life-line, can make his wants known to those above.

When the diver is all ready to descend, a man at the pump begins supplying him with air, and down he goes, first on an iron ladder at the vessel's side, then on long ladders of rope, with heavy weights at the ends.

I peeped from midst great weed-pads, and saw the diver as he reached the bottom of the sea. Do you wonder I trembled, yet was amused at what I saw? In his hands this time—for I saw him more than once after this—was a great hook and a light bag with a wide-open mouth. And what do you think? He had come to get sponges from the blue sea. Of course not at very great depth.

He knew his work. With the long hook, sponge after sponge was torn from its clung-to home on the slippery rocks, and quickly popped into the bag. He always moved backwards. If anything stopped him, rock, wreck, or floating weeds, he could turn slowly and carefully around, and see what it was. But should he meet an object suddenly at the fore, it might break even his shielded glass. Then he must immediately give the signal to be raised aloft.

Divers must begin by going down only a little way under the water, as it takes great skill and long practice to be able to go safely into deep water. A diver has about him a coil of line connected with the ladder, which he unwinds as he moves away; but by winding it about him again, he can find his way back to the ladder.

If two divers go down at the same time, I notice they take great care not to let their air-lines or life-lines cross each other's, and so get entangled. It might be a very serious affair to get them mixed.

I see that divers may go down from either a barge, a sailing vessel, or a large yacht, but there must be a deck that can hold the necessary machines and rigging to help them in their work. By casting down heavy pieces of lead, the sailor-Folk can "sound," or tell the distance to the bottom of the sea. The diver's line must always be twice the length of the distance he goes down.

I did not find this all out at once. Oh, by no means, but by not running away I gradually learned a great deal. And I was so glad I saw the queer performance! The frightened fishes were not quick to come back to their playground, where such a looking object had come swinging down, and when he came again the next day, and the next, I had the place to myself, and watched while he pretty well cleared that region of its fine, valuable sponges.

The next time I saw a diver it was in deeper water. I was sporting to and fro at another time when there was just such a panic among the fishes as I had seen before, and just such a scramble.

Down, down came the fearsome looking object, while I mixed myself in with a mass of sea-flowers, and keeping perfectly still, was not noticed. The diver's dress was much the same as the other's had been; he went backwards in the same cautious way, but instead of a long-handled hook, he carried only a queer bag that was let down to him by ropes.

The bag was deep, and had a frame along the top, with a scraper fastened to it. And what do you think again? He began scraping in all the conch-shells he could see that had what looked like a dab of mud or a milky spot on the side.

He was after pearls!

Divers often fish for pearls midst oyster-beds, and in more shallow water, but there are nets or dredgers also used for that purpose. But I at once knew that very valuable pearls must often be found in conch-shells and deep-sea oyster-shells, as the diver scraped in all of both that he could find.

Remember! All kinds of shell-fish are called "mollusca," have white blood, and breathe not only in the water, but also in the air.

And will you believe it? I have found out considerable about the signals that a diver gives to the man at the pump on deck.

If he wants to be pulled up, be gives the life-line four sharp pulls. If he wants more air, he gives one pull at the air-pipe. Two pulls on the life-line, and two pulls on the air-pipe, given quickly one after the other, mean that he is in trouble, and wants the help of another diver. One pull on the life-line means "all right."

There are many other signals I could not find out the meaning of, so can say nothing about. My instincts, as well as what I have noticed, tell me that a diver must be in the best of health, must be rather thin, have excellent eyesight, sound lungs, steady nerves, and a strong heart. The work is not easy. I wonder if work that pays well is often easy? I do not believe it is.

There used to be a strange machine in use called the "diving-bell." A great cast-iron cage, shaped something like a bell, let down by ropes, and so heavy that its own weight would sink it. Divers could sit inside, and fresh air was supplied by a force-pump. Bull's-eyes of heavy glass let in the light.

This must have frightened the fishes quite as much as did the diver, although it was not as frightful in appearance.

After a time, when the diver came down, some of my mates, seeing I was not a bit afraid if only hidden from sight myself, stayed near me under the broad seaweeds, but most of them fled far and wide at his approach.

The divers themselves are not free from danger. Great sea-serpents or sharks sometimes make it hot for them, but they are watchful, spry, and being "Folks," with power to think and plan, can generally look out for themselves and their safety.

MY STRANGE ADVENTURE

Now come the most exciting and in some respects the hardest events of my life thus far.

I have told of my great love of music, and have also said that the Dolphin family is a very sociable one. Yes, and I could grow fond of Folks, I know, if only they could live in the sea, or I could live on the land. But as neither of these things can be, I must be content with liking them at a distance.

One afternoon I was full of sport, and felt lively as a cricket. Oh, yes, I know the small, frisky fellow you call a cricket, with his little old black legs, and have heard him sing. So on this calm and lovely afternoon I began leaping upward instead of forward, and all at once I heard sounds of music floating across the upper sea. You can believe I floundered alongside, and oh, such sweetness as trilled out into the clear air!

The truth was, a great steamer was crossing the Mediterranean with a pleasure party on board. What I heard was the music of a brass band. My! My! Isn't it enough to delight the heart of any creature that has ears to hear? It actually would make a fish dance.

Now I didn't know it, but I made such plunges upward that my great dark body could be seen in the clear water, and some sailors began "laying" for me, half suspecting what might happen.

Well-a-well, I got so full of music, joy, and friskiness, that all at once I gave a tremendous jump, and flounced right on to the deck of the fine steamer. Had I not been so utterly surprised, I should immediately have flounced back again to my ocean bed "quick shot," as I afterward heard a sailor say. But dear, deary me! I hesitated just a moment too long, and when I made a flop intending to bounce away, lo! a stout rope was about my body, and another about my tail, and I was a prisoner!

Then the Folks all gathered about me, and the sailors went laughing off, saying something about "making the fellow's bed."

Oh, it was all very strange and unnatural. And in a few moments I began panting for breath. Just as you would gasp, if by accident you popped over from a boat into the water. Only you would gasp for want of air, and I was gasping from too much of it.

But it was not long before I was taken to a side of the vessel, and after straining and tugging with my great weight, I was indeed bounced into water, but when I tried to swim, oh, misery! what kind of a place was I in?

Only a tank, some twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, filled with sea water!

Truth was, there was a man-Folk on board who had caught, and wanted to carry to a great park in some far-distant land, a crocodile. Boo! a great sea-reptile that I wonder any one should want to have around, even as a curiosity. It had been taken from the river Nile in Egypt, much farther up the Mediterranean borders than I had ever been.

The crocodile did not live, so I was put into its tank, and that was the "bed" the sailors had made, by filling it with salt water. Shade of my royal grandfathers! how long I could live in such pinching quarters was a question.

I was given plenty of herring—so called—and other kinds of fish to eat, and "Folks" visited me about every hour of the day. There were children on the steamer, pretty little dears, that never tired of talking to me, and between them all, passengers, sailors, and the children, I learned how Folks talked, and a great many other things besides.

One fine, manly little fellow visited me constantly. He was voyaging for his health, and took much pleasure in sitting beside the tank, book in hand, yet watching my movements, and once he said something that made me wish I could talk in the language of Folks. Yet before I tell what it was, I want to say that there was one thing I did not like at all, but was not able to let the Folks know it.

The sailors called me "Dolly!" A great name to give a lord of the sea, a fellow bearing the title I owned!

The next morning after my capture, a really fine Jack—sailors are all "Jack," you know—came rolling toward my tank, and sang out in sea-breezy fashion:

"Hulloo, Dolly-me-dear, how do you find yourself to-day?"

I liked his hearty manner and cheery voice, but, dear me, I was "Dolly" to every man-Jack on board after that, and to all the others as well.

So this dear little man once said to me:

"Oh, Dolly, how I wish you could tell me about things under the sea! I know if you could only talk my way, you could tell stories by the hour, and what pleasure it would be to listen."

"Stories, indeed, my pretty," I thought, and I did wish I could open my wide mouth and entertain the little fellow with a few sea yarns. And now that in some way I can make Folks understand me, I only hope that my young steamer friend, among others, will see and enjoy Lord Dolphin's story.

Then the lady-Folks were fine, with their pretty dresses, nice manners, and soft voices. But I did so like the children! One cute little nymph of a girl was crazy to get near me, yet nearly scared to pieces if I so much as looked at her. Oh, she was so fair to see, with her golden hair flying back in the breeze, eyes blue as the sky, and her sweet, dimpled face full of smiles!

She would come running up to the tank with a great show of courage, crying bravely: "Hi, old Mister Dolly! I'se goin' a-put your great eye out!" But when the eye half-looked at her, off she would scud, and all I could see was a mass of flying yellow hair, a whisking of snowy skirts, and my little nymph was gone.

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