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Random documents with unrelated
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 The Project Gutenberg eBook of
The Merman and the Figure-Head
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Title: The Merman and the Figure-Head

Author: Clara F. Guernsey

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MERMAN

AND THE FIGURE-HEAD ***
“He gazed at the wooden creature with all his heart in
his eyes.” Page 62.

ADVENTURES
IN

Shadow-Land.
CONTAINING

Eva’s Adventures in Shadow-Land.

By MARY D. NAUMAN.

AND

The Merman and The Figure-Head.

By CLARA F. GUERNSEY.

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
 Lippincott’s Press,
Philadelphia.

THE MERMAN
AND

THE FIGURE-HEAD.
5
 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The Sea-Nymph 7

CHAPTER II.
The Sea Kingdom 28

CHAPTER III.
The Figure-head 52

CHAPTER IV.
The Bewitched Lover 74

CHAPTER V.
The Sea-Nymphs 90

CHAPTER VI.
Lucy Peabody’s Dream 103

THE MERMAN
AND

THE FIGURE-HEAD.
 CHAPTER I.
THE SEA-NYMPH.

“I may be wrong, but I think it a pity

For a movable doll to be made so pretty.”
Doll Poems.

“I shall call her the Sea-nymph,” said Master Isaac

Torrey.

“Umph!” said his clerk, Ichabod Sterns, looking over

his spectacles at his master.

“And why not The Sea-nymph, pray?” demanded

Master Torrey. “Why, I say, should I not call my fine new
brig The Sea-nymph if it pleases my fancy?”

“Fancy!” said Ichabod Sterns, putting his head on one 8

side. “Fancy! Umph!”

Now this was most exasperating conduct on Ichabod’s

part, and as such Master Torrey felt it.

“Yes, if it pleases my fancy,” he repeated, defiantly.

“What right have you, Ichabod Sterns, to object to that,
I should like to know? If I chose to name her after the
whole choir of all the nymphs that ever swam in the sea
—Panope and Melite, Arethusa, Leucothea, Thetis,
Cymodoce—what have you to say against it? Isn’t she
to swim the seas and make her living out of the winds
and waves? And what can you object to ‘The Sea-
nymph?’ I’d like to hear. But it’s your nature to object,
Ichabod Sterns. I’ve no doubt that you came objecting
into the world, and I’ve no doubt that when your time
comes you’ll object to dying. It would be just like you.”

“And death will mind my objections no more than

you, Master Torrey,” said the old clerk, smiling rather
grimly as Master Torrey ceased his pacing up and down
the room and flung himself into a chair.

“But what is your objection to the name?” asked the 9

merchant, calming down a little.

“Did I object?” said Ichabod Sterns.

“Didn’t you? You were bristling all over with

objections from the toe of your shoe to the top of your
wig.” Ichabod involuntarily put up his hand to his wig.
“Why isn’t it a good name for a ship?”

“Nay, I know naught against it, Master Torrey, only it

is a heathenish kind of name for a ship that is to sail out
of our decent Christian town of Salem.”

“Heathenish! Let me tell you, Master Ichabod, that

this world owes a vast deal to the heathen—more than
she does to some Christians I could name.”

Now this awful speech was enough to make the very

pig tails of many of Master Torrey’s acquaintance stand
on end with horror and surprise. But Ichabod was used
to his master’s ways, so he did not jump out of his chair,
but only looked to the door to be sure that no one had
overheard the terrible statement, for had such been the
case there is no telling what might have come to pass.

“How do you make that out, Master Torrey?” he said, 10

composedly.
 “Did you ever happen to hear of Socrates or Cicero?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” said Ichabod.

“And did you ever hear of the Duke of Alva, or

Cardinal Pole, or Bloody Queen Mary, or Catenat?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of ’em,” returned Ichabod again, a

little fiercely.

“And which was the better man, the Athenian or the

Christians who burnt their fellows at the stake?” said
Master Torrey, triumphantly, as one who had made a
point.

“Umph!” said Ichabod; “I’m not a scholar like you,

Master Torrey, but I’d like you to tell me whether they
were Christians by name that poisoned Socrates and
murdered Cicero?”

“Well, no,” said the merchant.

“Umph!” said Ichabod Sterns again, leaning back on

his chair and rubbing his hands slowly one over the
other.

“Well, what of that?” said Master Torrey, a little taken

aback.

“Oh, nothing, sir,” said Ichabod; “we have wandered a 11

long way from the name of the new brig.”

“She shall be The Sea-nymph,” said Master Torrey

with decision. “What could be better?”

“I thought, Master Torrey, you might have liked to call

her the Anna Jane,” said Ichabod, with a little cracked
laugh like an amused crow.

Master Torrey colored high, but not with displeasure.

“I wouldn’t venture, Ichabod, I wouldn’t dare. She’s

too shy, too modest, to be pleased with such an open
compliment.”

“Umph!” said the clerk again. It seemed to be a way

he had. “But you are determined to call her The Sea-
nymph, Master Torrey?”

“Ah, am I!” replied Torrey, who seemed by no means

disposed to pursue the subject of the “inexpressive
she,” whoever it might be. “And she shall have the
handsomest figure-head that Job Chippit can carve; and
it sha’n’t be a mere head and shoulders either, it shall
be a full-length figure.”

“It will cost a good penny, master. Job’s prices are 12

high.”

“There’s another objection! Who cares what it costs?

Am I a destitute person? Am I an absolute pauper? Am
I like to apply to the selectmen to be supported by the
town?”

“Not yet, master,” said Ichabod, gathering his papers

together. “But if we go to following our fancies”—
scornful emphasis—“there is no telling where we may
end;” and without giving his master time to reply,
Ichabod sped out of the counting-room.

Now I am not going to tell you a long story about 13

Master Torrey, though I might do so if I had not a tale
to tell you about something else—namely, this sea-
nymph and the merman who figure at the head of this
story. I was once told by a schoolmaster that in writing
there was “nothing so important as a strict adherence to
facts;” “fax” he called them. I treasured up this valuable
precept in the inmost recesses of my mind, and I mean
to adhere to facts if I possibly can. But I can’t adhere to
facts till I get them, and to do that I don’t see but I
shall have to tell you a little about Master Isaac Torrey,
merchant of Salem, who was the means of putting this
wonderful figure-head in the merman’s way. He was a
merchant of Salem when Salem was a centre of trade,
and sent many a brave ship to the Indies and the
Mediterranean. He was thirty-four years old, and looked
ten years younger. He was a man inclined to
extravagance and luxury. He wore the handsomest
waistcoats and the finest lace of any one in town. He
had been educated in the gravest, strictest fashion of
those grave days. His parents would have been horrified
if they had found him reading a novel or a play, but they
urged him on to study Virgil and Homer.

Now if you will promise, my young readers, never to

tell your respected instructors, I will let you into a
secret. The truth is that the poems of Virgil and Homer
are all full of stories as interesting and charming as any
boy or girl could desire. But this is a circumstance which
most school-teachers make it their first object in life to
conceal, and they generally succeed so well that their
pupils for the most part go through their whole course
of education and never discover that their Virgils and
Homers are anything but stupid school-books—a sort of
intellectual catacombs enshrining the dryest bones of
grammar and parsing.

Now and then, however, a boy or girl finds out that 14

there is food for the imagination in classic poetry. Such
had been the case with Isaac Torrey, and the verses
that he read with his tutor took such a hold upon him
that he became what some of his friends called “half a
heathen.” Not but that an acquaintance with the classics
was thought becoming, nay, essential, to the character
of a gentleman. In the speeches and writings of those
days a due seasoning of allusions to the old gods and a
sprinkling of Latin quotations was considered the proper
thing. But this learning was rather looked upon as solid
and ponderous furniture for the mind—an instrument of
mental discipline. Fancy, imagination, amusement, were
ideas much too light and frivolous to be connected with
anything so grave, solid and respectable as the
intellectual drill for which alone Latin and Greek were
intended. So when Isaac Torrey talked about the old
gods as if they had been real existences, and spoke of
Achilles, Hector and Andromache as though they had
been live creatures, he rather startled the excellent
young divinity student who was his tutor.

Once upon a time his father detecting a smell of 15

burning followed it up to Isaac’s room, where he found
his son in the midst of a cloud of blue smoke. He asked
the cause, and was told that in order to procure fair
weather for the next day’s fishing excursion he (Isaac)
had been sacrificing a paper bull to Jupiter.

Mr. Torrey senior was inexpressibly shocked at the

thought that his son should have been guilty of such a
heathenish performance. He gave the boy a lecture of
an hour long, ending with a whipping. He called in the
minister to talk to him. That gentleman, on being
informed of the act of idolatry perpetrated in his parish,
only took a prodigious pinch of snuff and said: “Pooh!
pooh! child’s play! child’s play! No use to talk about it.
Let the boy alone.” Mr. Torrey had the highest respect
for his clergyman, and the boy was let alone
accordingly, and was deeply grateful to the Rev. Mr.
Bartlett.

Isaac grew up tall and handsome, went to school and 16

to college, and in spite of numerous prophecies that he
would never be good for anything, neither went into
debt nor disgraced himself in any way. In due course of
time he succeeded to his father’s business, and
astonished every one by making money and being
successful, in spite of his tasteful dress, his “wild ways”
of talking and a report that he actually wrote poetry.

At the present time he was devoted to Miss Anna

Jane Shuttleworth, a beautiful still image of a girl, who
was supposed to have a great fund of good sense,
propriety, prudence and piety, because she liked to sit
still and sew from morning to night, and hardly ever
opened her lips. Ichabod Sterns was the old clerk of
Isaac’s father. He and his young master exasperated
each other in many ways, but they were fond of each
other for all that.

From the counting-house on the wharf and the talk

with Ichabod Sterns, Master Torrey went to the
workshop of Job Chippit, who in those days was famous
for his skill in the carving of figure-heads.

In these times Job would probably have been a 17

sculptor, have gone to Rome and been famous in marble
and bronze. But the idea of such a thing had never
entered his brain, and he went on from year to year
making his wooden figures without any thought of a
higher calling. He was a little dried, brown old man, with
bright eyes slightly near-sighted. Year after year he
carved Indian chiefs, eagles and wooden maidens for
the Sally Anns and Susan Janes that sailed from the
New England ports, portraits of public men, likenesses
of William and Mary. He had once made a full-length
figure of Oliver Cromwell for a certain stiff-necked old
merchant of Boston who called his best ship after the
great Protector—a statue which every one thought his
finest work. “It was so natural,” said the good folks of
Salem, and really I don’t know that they could have said
anything better even if they had been art critics and had
written for the newspapers.

True it was that all Job’s works had a certain live look 18
to them that was almost startling sometimes. The
Indians clenched their hatchets with a savageness quite
alarming; they looked as though they might open their
wooden lips and whoop. His female figures had life and
character. Each governor, senator or general had his
own peculiar expression and style.

Job was an artist, and, what was more, he was a

well-paid artist. He quite appreciated his own genius,
and got almost any prices he liked to ask for his signs
and figure-heads. Job was the fashion, and no ship of
any pretension sailed from a harbor along the coast but
carried one of his masterpieces on the bow.

As Master Torrey entered his shop he was just putting

the last touches of paint on an oaken bust destined to
adorn Captain Peabody’s little schooner, The Flora. “So
you have nearly finished The Flora’s figure-head,” said
Master Torrey, whose tastes led him to be a frequent
visitor at Job’s shop.

“And a pretty creature she is,” said Job, suspending

his paint-brush full of the yellow-brown pigment with
which he was tinging the rippled hair of the wooden
lady, which was crowned with a garland of flowers
carved with no mean skill.

“And the flowers! Don’t you think they are an 19

improvement? What did Captain Peabody say to them?”

“He didn’t jest like them at first,” replied Job,

continuing his work. “I didn’t myself, to begin with, for
you know the ship is called after his wife, and nobody
ever see old Mis’ Peabody going round with flowers in
her hair; but the captain, sez he, ‘Job, I want to have
you make it somethin’ like what Mis’ Peabody was when
she was a young woman, ef you kin,’ sez he. ‘She was a
most uncommon pretty girl when I went a-courting in
Salsbury.’ Well, I was kind of struck with the idee, and
the next day I went to meeting, and I sot and sot, and
kind of studied the old lady’s face all through meetin’-
time; and when they stood up to sing, the choir sang
‘Amsterdam.’ You know it’s a kind of livening sort of
hymn. The old lady, she kind of brightened up, and it
seemed as if I could see the young face sort of coming
out behind the old one. Thinks I, ‘Job Chippit, you’ve
got it,’ and when I come home, though it was the
Sabbath day, I couldn’t hardly keep my hands off the
tools, and the minute the sun was down I went at it.
Then when you come in the next day and told me about
the Flora them old folks used to think took care of the
flowers and the spring, it seemed to suit so well with my
notion of the old lady when she was young I couldn’t
help stickin’ the flowers onto her head, like a fool as I
was, for they wa’n’t in the bargain, and I sha’n’t get no
extry pay for ’em.”

“And what did Captain Peabody say?” asked Master 20

Torrey, whose own nature found sympathy in that of the
artist.
 “Oh, he was as tickled as could be when I’d
persuaded him about the flowers. Lucy Peabody, she’s
been to see it. She says she expects that’s the way her
mother’ll look when she gets to heaven, and the flowers
was like the crowns we read about in the Revelations.
She’s an awful nice girl, Lucy Peabody. Anna Jane
Shuttleworth was with her.”

“And what did she say?” asked Master Torrey, eagerly.

“Oh, nothing. Anna Jane don’t never have much to 21

say for herself. I told her the wreath was your notion,
and she kind of smiled, but she hadn’t a word to say.
But look here, Master Torrey, am I to have the making
of the figure-head for your new ship, and what is it to
be?”

“That’s just what I have come to see you about, Job,”

said Master Torrey. “I am going to call her the Sea-
nymph, and I want you to make the most beautiful full-
length figure of a sea-nymph to stand on her bow and
look across the water when the brig goes sailing away
into the South Seas.”

“A sea-nimp!” said Job; “and what sort of a critter

may that be?”

“Did you never hear of them?”

“Never as I know of. There’s more fish in the sea than

ever come out of it. I expect these nimps of yourn are
some of the kind that never come out.”

“You never were more mistaken in your life, Job

Chippit. They have been seen on the surface of the sea
over and over again. We know almost all their names,
and how could they have names if they were not real
beings? Answer me that!”

“Oh!” said Job, standing back to take a general survey 22

of his wooden Flora. “They’re some of them heathen
young women your head is always so full of, Master
Torrey?”

“Young women! Why they were goddesses, man, or a

sort of goddesses. Was there not the white-footed
Thetis, mother of Achilles? and did she not come to him
with all her attendant nymphs—Melite, and Doris, and
Galatea, and Panope?”

“I’ve hearn tell of her,” said Job, touching up the

wreath on Flora’s head; “it’s in Lycidas:

‘The air was calm, and on the level brine

Slick Panope and all her sisters played.’

“Jest so; I kinder like to read that piece. It don’t seem

to have so very much meanin’ to’t, I must say, but I sort
of like the sound of it. Them nimps lived in the sea, or
folks thought they did, didn’t they?”

“Yes, Job, as we live on the land. I’m by no means

sure that I haven’t heard and seen Nereides and
Oceanides myself when I’ve been out by moonlight on
the bay or round the rocks.”

“I guess they never was any round these parts; it’s 23

too cold for ’em. I knew an old sailor once that said he’d
seen a mermaid, but I suppose you don’t want me to
stick a curly fish’s tail on your figure-head?”

“No, indeed. Make her full length, like the most

beautiful woman you know.”
 “Hev’ you any idee how them young women used to
dress. Master Torrey?” asked the wood-carver. “I’d like
to go as near the nature of the critter as I could. I must
say the notion takes my fancy. It’ll make kind of a
variety, and it’s a pretty sort of an idee to name a ship
after a thing that has its life out the sea.”

“I thought you’d think so,” said Master Torrey,

gratified. “Ichabod Sterns said it was a heathenish name
for a ship that was to sail out of Salem.”

“Well, you know Ichabod. He hain’t got much notion

of anything of that sort. But now what’s your notion of
these ’ere water women? Kinder cold-blooded critters
they must have been, I’m thinking.” There was
something in this last remark which seemed to grate on
Master Torrey’s feelings, whatever they were.

“Why so?” he said, a little shortly.

“Oh, because it’s the natur’ of all the things in the 24

sea. It must have been but a damp, uncomfortable way
to live for warm-blooded folks; but tell me what they
were like, or do you happen to have a picture of one?”

“I’m sorry to say I have not.”

“Did they think they was like folks, or did they live for
ever?”

“Some said they were immortal, others that they were

only very long-lived. Plutarch says they lived more than
nine thousand years.”

“Creation! What awful old maids they must have

been! That’s more than old Mrs. Skinner, who was
eighty-six when she married John Dickenson, ’cause she
said she wasn’t going to have ‘Miss’ on her tombstone if
she could help it.”

“But then they always remained young and lovely,

never grew old or changed. They used to say that
whoever looked on an unveiled nymph went mad.”

“Waal, I’d risk that if I could see one. But they was
kind of onlucky sort of critters, then, after all?” asked
Job, who seemed to be inwardly dwelling on some
thought which he was keeping out of the talk.

“Yes, to those who approached them rashly, but they 25

were kind to those who worshiped them with reverence
and offered them the gifts they loved.”

“Waal, they wa’n’t very peculiar in that. The most of

women is capable of being coaxed if you only go to
work the right way. I don’t know how it might have
been with gals in the sea, but it ain’t best to be too
dreadful diffident with the land kind always,” returned
Job, with a sly smile. “But about this figure of ourn. I
suppose it ought to have some kind of a light gown on,
and hadn’t they—them nimps?—got no emblem, nor
nothing of that sort, like Neptune’s trident? I’m going to
make a Neptune for a ship Peleg Brag’s got. Her name
was The Ann Eliza. But the young woman she was
named for, she up and married Jonathan Whitbeck, so
Peleg, he’s gont to call his ship The Neptune now. It’s
the only way he can think of to take it out on Ann Eliza,
and I don’t expect that’ll kill her; but didn’t these nimps
have nothing about them to show what they were?”

“Sometimes seaweeds, or coral and shells. Sometimes

they held a silver vase.”
 “Waal, I reckon I’ll take the vase, if it’s agreeable to 26
you, and make her holding it out, and put some
seaweed and shells and sich onto her head, and let her
hair fly loose, as if the wind blew it back. She won’t
want no shoes nor sandals, nor nothing of that sort.
What would be the use to a critter that passes its life
swimming round the sea?”

“I see you understand. You’ll make her a beauty,

Job?”

“I’ll do my best. You’ll want her to be a light-

complected young woman, I guess.”

“They say the Nereides had green hair, but Virgil says
Arethusa’s was golden, so we may make our nymph’s
that color,” said Master Torrey, turning away to the
window.

“Jes’ so; I’ll go right to work. I must get Lucy

Peabody to put on a white gown and come and let me
look at her a little. She’ll do it. She’s a real
accommodating girl, is Lucy.”

“But Lucy is not fair.”

“No more she ain’t. Not white as milk, like Anna Jane 27
Shuttleworth, but she’s a nice, pretty girl, and will be
willing to oblige me. I’d never dare ask such a thing of
old Colonel Shuttleworth’s daughter.”

Master Torrey smiled to himself as he thought of the

silent, stately Anna standing as a model in the rude
shop.

“But I’ll give the figure a look like Anna Jane, if I can,”
pursued Job. “To my mind, she’s a great deal more like
some such thing than she is like a real flesh-and-blood
woman.”

To this Master Torrey made no answer, but smiled at

the old man’s folly, and passed into the street without
even asking what would be the price of the wooden
sea-nymph.

28
 CHAPTER II.
THE SEA KINGDOM.

I take it for granted that all my readers have heard of

mermen and mermaids. But in case any one’s education
should have been neglected, I will just say that they are
like human beings, only that instead of legs they have
tails like dolphins, a fashion much more useful in their
element, and regarded by them as much more
ornamental, than the style in which people are finished
on land.

The merladies are very beautiful. They have long,

golden hair, and have often been seen sitting on the
rocks by the seaside, combing their locks with their
golden combs and holding a looking-glass. They are
also said to sing in the most charming manner. I knew a
Manx woman once whose mother had seen a mermaid
making her toilette. She described the sea lady as
wonderfully beautiful, and “singing in a way that would
ravish your heart.”

“But as soon as she saw that she was watched,” said 29

Katy, “she gave a scream like a sea eagle and dived into
the water. No one ever saw her again, but I’ve heard
the singing more than once when I was young.”

Concerning the kingdoms of the sea and their

inhabitants Hans Anderson has written a pretty story,
which I hope you have all read. The fullest account,
however, that I know of the mer countries is in the
Arabian Nights, Lane’s translation, where you will find
the story of “Abdalla of the Land and Abdalla of the
Sea.” It is a pity that the date and place of this
interesting narration is left so uncertain, for to some
minds it throws an air of improbability over the whole
story; however, it is certainly the most authentic
account of the world under the waters. So far as I
know, “Abdalla of the Land” is the only person who has
ever associated familiarly with mermen.

There was, to be sure, Gulnare of the Sea, who 30

married the King of Khorassan and introduced her
family to that monarch. But she was not a proper
merwoman, being destitute of their peculiar appendage,
and being, moreover, related to the Genii and Afrites of
those parts.

But in the chronicle of Abdalla you will find much that

is curious and interesting. There you may read
concerning the “dendan,” that tremendous fish which is
able to swallow an elephant at a mouthful; and, by the
way, if you wish to descend into the sea undrowned,
you have only to anoint yourself with the fat of the
dendan. But the difficulty seems to be in catching this
monster, who eats mermen whenever he can find them.
You, however, are in no danger even if you happen to
fall in his way, for he dies “whenever he hears the voice
of a son of Adam.” So if you should fall in with a
dendan, you have only to scream at the top of your
voice and be quite safe. But concerning these wonders
and many more I have no time to write, seeing that if
you can get the book you can read it for yourself.

Now there are just as many mermen and mermaids 31

along the American coasts as there are anywhere else,
though they very seldom show themselves. I heard,
indeed, of a sailor who had seen one in Passamaquoddy
Bay, but I did not have the pleasure of conversing with
this mariner myself, so I am unable to state as an
absolute fact that a mermaid was seen.

If any of you are at the seaside in the summer, you

can keep a sharp lookout, and there is no telling what
you may see. You would find an alliance with a mer-
person very advantageous if we may judge by the
experience of Abdalla. Jewels in the sea are as common
as pebbles with us, and in return for a little fruit a
merman will give you bushels of precious stones.

You must be a little careful, however, not to offend

them, for it would seem that some of them are rather
touchy and apt to be intolerant of other people’s opinion
in matters of doctrine and practice.

Now, not far from the Massachusetts coast, out 32

beyond the bay, is a very beautiful sea country. There
are mountains as big as Mount Washington, whose
tops, just covered by the sea, are bare rock, but which
are clothed around their base with the most beautiful
seaweed, golden green and purple and crimson.
Through these seaweeds wander all manner of strange
creatures, such as human eyes have never seen, for
there is no truer proverb than that “There are more fish
in the sea than ever came out of it.” There are miles
and miles of gray-green weed and emerald moss where
the sea cows and sea horses find pasture. There, too,
are the cities and villages of the merpeople, and many a
pleasant home standing in the midst of the beautiful sea
gardens, blossoming with strange flowers and bright
with strange fruit.

The houses are grottoes and caves hollowed out of

the rock, and for the most part very handsomely
furnished, for there is a great deal of wealth among the
sea people. They have not only all the mineral wealth of
the sea, but they have all the treasures that have been
lost in the deep ever since men first began to sail the
waters. Their soft carpets are made of sea-green wool
that the sea people comb and weave, for they are
skillful in the arts and manufactures.

They have soft, lace-like fabrics woven of seaweed, 33

silks and satins that the water does not hurt. There is
no coral on our Northern shores, but they import it, and
pay in exchange with oysters and looking-glasses. The
sea ladies dress in the most beautiful things you can
imagine, that is, when they dress at all, for in warm
weather they generally make their appearance in a light
suit of their own hair with a zone and necklace of pearls
or jewels.

This country that I am writing about has a republican

form of government, and is very prosperous and
comfortable. It is a long time since any foreign power
has made war upon it, and it has had time to grow and
develop its resources. But at the time of which I write
they had just finished a seven years’ war with the king
of a country lying to the east who had tried to annex
the sea republic to his own dominions. This monarch
had counted on a very easy conquest because the
republic kept a very small army, not big enough really to
keep down the sharks. Moreover, there was a large
“Peace Society” in the country, every member of which
had maintained repeatedly, in the most public manner,
that it was the duty of every member to be invaded and
killed a dozen times over rather than lift up his hand in
war against any creature with mer blood in his veins.
The king thought this talk of theirs really meant
something, I suppose they thought so themselves in
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