The young man scarcely ventured to breathe lest he should frighten her; but a stone loosened beneath his hand and rolled rattling to the ground. She looked up and turned her head, and now his glance met a face of unimagined beauty.

"Who art thou?" she asked, in gentle astonishment; "and what seekest thou here on this world-forsaken shore?"

"I wished to see the beauties of Norway," he gathered courage to answer, "and I found them greater than I expected. But who art thou, wondrous being, who venturest to stay alone in this solitude, with none save the ocean and yon stern rocks to bear thee company?"

"I am the sea-fairy," she answered gravely. "The golden evening sunshine, which streamed down into my castle, enticed me to the strand, as it has done many a time before. But thou art the first mortal that I have seen here for thousands of years."

He did not answer, but gazed dreamily on her lovely form. In his soul the fairy tales of childhood shone dimly forth—tales of the crystal castle under the sea, and of the fascinating beauty of the sea-fairy; and now, could these have been no fables, but reality—sweet tangible reality?

For a moment he covered his eyes with his hand, and looked again. No, she had not vanished. The rosy light of the evening sun lay now on her white garment, and her beautiful form seemed still more lovely in this radiance. She rose slowly, and apparently with the intention of going away to the waves, when such burning pain came in the young man's soul that he took his hand from the point of the rock and stepped respectfully, but with firm tread, up to the beautiful lady.

"No, do not go," he begged, raising his hand in earnest entreaty; "do not go, thou vision of my childhood. But if thou canst not tarry longer here, then take me down into thy ocean kingdom. There is no one on earth to miss me; and now that I know that thou really dwellest beneath these waves, I shall feel an unappeasable longing after thee, as in the days of my childhood, when I lay for hours on the shore of my native land hoping to catch a glimpse of the pinnacles of thy castle."

The fairy stood still, and her eye, blue and fathomless as the ocean at the horizon, looked in the young man's face as if to read his soul.

"Knowest thou what thou askest?" she said earnestly. "If I grant thy petition and take thee with me, it is for no short amusement, which thou canst leave when tired, and wander further at thy will. No; if thou go with me it is to stay in my kingdom, and only with thy life wilt thou be permitted to release thyself from thy vow. Consider it well. In thy veins flows the blood of a faithless race; but we are of a different nature. Ingratitude and faithlessness we punish severely, and our heart knows no weak pity for those who incur our wrath."

"Try me, lady," said the youth, with firm determination. "Take me with thee, and let me serve thee and surround thee with love and obedience; and if thou find me faithless, spare not thine anger."

"Come then," said the sea-fairy, "and forget not that it is thine own choice." And Antonio, for that was the young man's name, walked joyfully beside the wondrous woman towards the waves. She loosed the star-set girdle from her dress, and gave it to the youth. "Put it on," she said, "that those beneath the waves may recognise thee as one of mine;" and he did as she bade him. Then she gave him her hand, and stepped out upon the sea, which grew smooth beneath her foot as a path of crystal. Antonio followed joyfully; the magic girdle prevented him from sinking, and when the shore lay a few steps behind them, the glittering plain opened and disclosed a glassy stair that led down into the depths of the ocean kingdom. Did he step down on them, or did they, rising upwards, offer themselves to his foot? He could not make out how it was, for, now that he was led by the fairy's hand and girt with her girdle, earthly laws had no longer power over him. He only knew that they were descending into the water with marvellous swiftness, and that the waves of the Gulf Stream, which flows with the warmth of spring around these coasts, played softly round his head and shoulders, while he breathed among them as freely as on the air above. And when he looked upwards he saw the crystal steps break and form again into waves as soon as the foot left them, and above his head the sea heaved as was its wont, the great waves following one after the other with a glorious play of ever-changing colours.

Soon he stood at the bottom of the sea; and here there was nothing dark or gloomy, as we are apt to think, but all around the reflection of the evening sky lit the clear depths with golden light.

"Now thou art in my kingdom," said the sea-fairy; "forget not that it is the home of thine own choice."

His eyes shone as he gave a joyful assent. "His home!" And he would never long for another; of that he was quite sure.

They walked together over the soft, shining, golden sand. Not far off purple trees rose on their slender stems, and sent their wide branches out on every side.

"That is my coral park," said the sea-fairy; "it stands in wide circles round the ocean castle, and keeps the wild waves far from this retreat."

Soon they stood at the gate of the magic hedge, and the fairy laid her hand upon the rock. Suddenly an electric current seemed to stir the whole line of trees. Thousands of little slumbering creatures awoke, and stretched their tiny heads out of the openings between the branches to greet their lady. She, meantime, walked with Antonio through the intricate paths of the coral grove, till they reached the shining plain where the castle of the sea-fairy stood. Its lofty walls were crowned by a glittering roof, over which the waves glided to and fro with softest music.

Antonio gazed in happy astonishment on the radiant edifice, which excelled in beauty all the childish dreams of which it reminded him.

"And may I stay here? and shall I never be obliged to leave this splendour?" he asked in a gentle whisper; but before the fairy could answer there was a trembling in the waves around. Over the transparent roof, and out of the shadows of the coral grove, came myriads of little star-fishes of violet and rosy hues, and played round the head of Antonio and among the sea-fairy's locks like butterflies on a summer day. Then they fluttered away again, and lost themselves in the trembling dance of the waves.

The beautiful lady, still carefully keeping hold of Antonio's hand, walked now over the watery meadow which surrounded the castle with its gentle waves; and when she reached the high-arched portal the transparent gates opened of themselves, and the empress of the ocean entered her enchanted palace.

Antonio's eye was dazzled by the splendour all around. Hall after hall followed in brilliant succession, and over all stretched the high arches of the crystal roof, through which the evening sky shed its undiminished splendour. Warm and soft as the breath of spring, the little waves glided through these enchanted rooms and fell back with gentle splashing from the crystal walls—now shining like a flood of crimson, now azure blue, and now like liquid amber; thus they mirrored the changing play of colours in the fleeting clouds overhead.

The sea-fairy looked into Antonio's joyous face. "Thinkest thou that thou canst forget thine earthly home here in my kingdom?" she asked graciously.

"Forget it?" he replied. "If home is the fairest spot on earth, then I have only found mine now. Henceforth all other places lie eternally forgotten. But what is that yonder?" he asked, pointing to tall green pillars whose tops reached nearly to the crystal roof.

"See for thyself," said the sea-fairy, and he moved by her side towards the last hall in which the graceful columns stood. And now he glides between their slender shafts, and utters a joyous cry as he looks up at the transparent dome, beneath which leafy tree-crowns waved, while little star-fishes gleamed brightly as they glided among the leaves.

"Palm trees!" cried Antonio, breathless with astonishment—"palm trees, such as I have heard rustling by the banks of the Ganges! This must be some delusion, some golden dream, out of which I must sooner or later wake. No, no, there are the tender lianas winding round the kingly stems, and there in the shadow lurks my lotos flower, the most beautiful of all the gorgeous blossoms of India!"

ANTONIO LAYS THE DEAD MAIDEN IN HER LAST RESTING-PLACE.

At last he rose, cast a last look on the lines of sleepers, stepped back into the coral grove, and made his way through the shadowy paths back to the sea-fairy's castle.

His ocean vision had lost its charm, the paradise of his childish dreams was laid in ruins; the sunny waves, which so short a time before had played around him with the soft warmth of summer breezes, felt now so cold that he shuddered, and his breathing became laboured and painful.

Again he rested in the hall of palms, and the stamens of the lotos-blossom floated caressingly over his temples, in which the blood now flowed more quickly, for the death-cry of the sinking crew still rang in his ears, and before his eyes hovered the pale, beautiful image of the dead maiden.

Where, ah! where had he seen those features? He looked up into the waving summits of the palms. Could it have been on the banks of the Ganges that such a mouth had smiled at him, from the band of Hindu girls who passed him every evening with pitchers on their heads on their way to fetch water from the sacred stream? No, no, it was not there, nor in any of the favoured countries of the new world, that he had seen that face, for there the maidens' hair was of a darker hue. No; no foreign land had ever shown him those sweet features, and his thoughts turned to his old, half-forgotten home.

The palm-trees beneath the crystal dome changed as he gazed into the old wide-spreading lime-tree in his father's garden, and the song of the waves in the fairy halls sounded in his ear like the tones of the little organ which his father played at evening when the day's work was done.

Antonio closed his eyes. Was it to call up more easily the old long-forgotten scenes, or to hide the hot tears which started to his eyes? It seemed to him as if he lay once more on the round bench below the lime-tree, with his head on his tender mother's lap, and her soft hand upon his brow; above him rustled the lime leaves, and through the open windows floated the soft notes of his father's evening song. Antonio lay there listening in silence. His mother sat with a happy smile on her loved face, and by her side Antonio's old teacher, on whose lips he and his wild companions hung in rapt attention, as he told them of the strange lands which he had visited in his youth.

Oh, what a flood of memories rushed over Antonio's heart!—music and fragrance, his mother's gentle hand, and the old man's wonderful descriptions; and in the midst of all a tender, fairy-like child, in a soft white dress and golden hair, who flitted like a sunbeam through the garden paths! When she had gathered enough flowers, she came softly up, sat down at her father's feet, and wove a garland; Antonio kept his eyes closed, not to sleep, but to listen undisturbed. The little one, thinking him asleep, rose softly and placed the garland on his brow. Then he caught her hands, and playfully held her fast; but she bent over him till her fair locks touched his cheeks and whispered, "Be quiet, Tony; thy father is telling a story, and does not like to be interrupted;" and she looked down at him and smiled.

The riddle was solved at last. It was she. It was the sweet child to whom his wild boyish heart had gone out in tender love, and whose image had gone with him into distant lands till it faded before the brilliant, ever-changing scenes through which he passed. But now it stood before him in its old beauty, and he loved her as though they had parted yesterday—now, when she lay cold and stiff among the dead.

He rose, clasped his hands in anguish, and looked up at the crystal roof, through which the evening sky sent all the bright hues of a northern sunset. But all that he had loved to look on here had no beauty for him now. Within was melody and song and unearthly splendour; without, death, horror, and unutterable grief. He sprang up, ran as if hunted through the glittering halls, and out to the plain before the castle; but the floods which were wont to send fragrance and song and radiance to hail his coming seemed to him now filled with deadly darkness, and the sound of their waves was like suppressed sobbing.

He turned away shuddering, and, for the first time since he came to the fairy's kingdom, he directed his steps to the coral gate which parted the Gulf Stream from the darker billows of the ocean. He passed out, and walked in gloomy silence over the sand, which to-day seemed to have lost its golden glitter. Soon he stood at the spot where the crystal steps ended, and he looked up longingly through the heaving flood.

"Oh that I could return just once to the free fresh air," he sighed—"to my old forsaken home!" And his wish was fulfilled, for he still wore the starry girdle which made the elements obedient to his will. The waves parted like the petals of a lily, and formed themselves into glassy steps. With a shout of joy Antonio placed his foot on the lowest one, and he scarcely knew whether he moved himself or whether the water lifted him from step to step. He saw the blue waters become clearer and clearer, until he stood on the last step, his head rose above the waves, and he drew deep breaths of his native air.

With flashing eye and heaving breast Antonio looked westwards, where the sun's radiant ball rested on a bed of purple clouds, while the reflection fell in roseate and amber shadows over the whole heaven, and the distant billows flowed like a mantle of royal purple.

But the waves which bore Antonio to the strand dashed up golden spray just as on that summer evening when he descended to the fairy-land below the sea. There lay also the red rock at which he had first seen the fairy, and with a sigh he bent his steps in that direction. Was there not some one sitting there now? Antonio shaded his eyes with his hand, for he was still dazzled by the unaccustomed light. It was no illusion. There, where the fairy once sat, was to-day a bent and aged figure, and instead of the golden locks flowed silvery hair about the temples.

"A human being!" was Antonio's first ecstatic thought as he ran across the strand.

"Good evening, sir," he cried joyfully.

The old man raised his weary head, and his sad eyes rested with indifference upon the youth. But the last few hours had changed Antonio. The veil had fallen from his eyes and heart, and he saw now with the keen true eye of childhood. The hair on the old man's head had indeed grown whiter since he saw it last, and sorrow had graven its deep lines on the high forehead; but it was the same clear-cut mouth to whose words Antonio had once listened with burning eagerness, and in the dark eyes still flashed something of the old fire. It was his aged teacher, the father of the pale, beautiful maiden among the dead in the ocean depths.

"Do you not know me, revered sir?" asked Antonio, with faltering voice, as he bowed in courteous greeting.

The old man looked at him again.

"No," he said slowly, "I did not notice you among the crew; but though you are a stranger, I am glad that you are saved. I thought I was the only survivor from the shipwreck."

"Look at me once more, sir," said Antonio, trying to steady his faltering voice, "and turn back a few pages in your life's history. Think of a little garden, and of an old lime-tree beneath whose leafy roof you often sat, while the sweet tones of an organ thrilled through the summer air."

The old man's eyes shone more brightly, and his lips trembled.

"Antonio!" he stammered out, "Antonio!" and his white head sank on the shoulder of his favourite pupil, who knelt before him with his arm wound in filial tenderness round the childless man.

"Oh, Antonio! I have lost my child to-day, only to-day. She would not let me go alone to the distant north, to which some luckless impulse drove me in my old age, and so she came with me on my toilsome journey. Today we struck on a hidden reef, and the same wave which dashed her against the dark rock drove me, despite my struggling, on this barren strand, though I would fain lie with my darling child below the waves."

The old man covered his face with his hands, and Antonio did not venture on any words of consolation.

"If I could even find her corpse," said the poor old man at last, "I could bury her at home; but even the sad consolation of visiting her grave is denied me."

"She has found a better resting-place than you could give her," said Antonio—"she sleeps on a golden bed; a coral grove surrounds the spot; corruption has no power over her fair features, and no worm can touch her. Amid noble companions she slumbers, while the sunbeams kiss her snowy eyelids, and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream flow gently over her."

"How do you know all this, Antonio?" asked the old man in astonishment.

And Antonio told him about that evening when he met the beautiful sea-fairy at this very rock, and descended with her into her ocean kingdom, there to live in forgetfulness of home and friends, until, awakened by what he had seen and felt to-day, the old memories acquired new power over him, and throbbed more strongly than ever in his soul.

"What will you do now, my son?" asked the old man.

"I will go home with you," Antonio answered promptly. "I will be to you a devoted and obedient son, if you will but let me."

The old man gazed at him with beaming eyes.

"Then let us go," he said, rising, "for I long to leave this place of horror. In a few hours we shall reach the little harbour in which we cast anchor yesterday evening, and there we can embark in a homeward-bound ship."

"Let it be as you will, my father," replied Antonio. "But one duty remains yet unfulfilled. If the sea-fairy had led me by deceit or violence into her kingdom, flight would be but right; but I went of my own free will, bound myself to obedience and unchanging fidelity, and enjoyed her kindness and hospitality. It seems to me cowardly and ungrateful to go away secretly, without a word of thanks or of farewell, and the thought of this would destroy my happiness at home. To-day she is to return. I will go to meet her, tell her what broke the spell of her kingdom, and beg her to let me go in peace, and with her blessing. Wait for me here. The air of this zone is soft, and its night skies clear. Before the bright night changes to the brighter day, I will come back to leave you no more."

He kissed the old man's hand, and went towards the sea. Meantime the fairy had returned. The open coral gate and the empty halls of her palace told her that Antonio was gone. Her soul was filled with grief and rage. He was one, indeed, of that faithless race whom she already knew and hated; but his eye and heart had still that divine image which she sought in vain among the cold, dumb creatures of the ocean, and in comparison with which the beauty and harmony of her fairy realm seemed poor and unsatisfying. He had become very dear to her. She had begun to believe in his fidelity only to find herself once more deceived. But, as she had told him, the weak pity of mortals found no room in her heart. She did not complain, and no word of anger escaped her firm-set lips. She would go up to punish the faithless one, if he was still within her reach, according to her former threatenings.

She passed through the coral gate to the place where the heaving steps led to the world above. She beckoned, and the rocking staircase grew firm beneath her tread. Just as she set her foot on the first step, Antonio began to descend. They met half-way in the midst of the sea. Antonio trembled, as she stood before him in the full splendour of her magic beauty and her overwhelming majesty and might, and his soul shrank from her, and turned with ardent longing to his own loved home.

"Whence comest thou?" she asked sternly, although her keen ear heard the story of the last few hours in the louder beating of his heart. "Whence comest thou?" Then he gathered courage to tell her all, and begged her to let him go in peace.

"Rememberest thou not that summer evening when thou insistedst on coming with me, notwithstanding my warning?" she asked in the same severe tone.

"Yes," Antonio faltered.

"And dost thou not remember my threat, and thy demand that I should punish thee if thou shouldst break thy faith?"

"I remember it all," Antonio said, with trembling lips.

"And in the face of all this dread and certain future dost thou still dream of leaving me?"

"I cannot do otherwise," he cried passionately; "the ocean kingdom has lost its charm since I have seen the gulf of irreconcilable enmity which divides it from my race—since it has robbed me of what was once my heart's dearest treasure. No, proud lady, let me go; I should be henceforth but a dismal guest."

Her eyes grew dark and fathomless as the deep sea beneath them.

"Go," she said slowly, "but first loose thy girdle."

He drew a deep breath of hope and delight, took the starry girdle from his waist, and gave it to the fairy. She took it, looked once more into his face, and glided down over the breaking steps.

Antonio turned to seek the upper world, but the stair above him had vanished, the step on which his foot rested melted from beneath him, and he found himself floating through the dark, deep waters. But the waves flowed no longer soft and free as spring breezes over his head and breast. With his girdle he had given up his power over them, and now he was but a weak mortal struggling with the raging elements. The waves roared round him, and tossed him hither and thither like a ball, while he strove in vain to breathe. He looked up to measure the distance, then he struggled with all the strength of despair against the waves. His young strong arm bore him upwards; once more he raised his head above the flood and breathed the air of heaven. His eye sought the red rock on which his old teacher sat, with his arms stretched out helplessly towards his adopted son, whose desperate struggles he had no power to help.

"I am coming, I am coming, my father," he cried confidently, but a giant billow swept over the youth and hurled him down into the boiling deep.

The evening hues were fading from the ocean, and the old man still stood beside the rock, his hands clasped, and his eyes gazing fixedly on the now tranquil deep. A dark object came floating from the west, and the waves left it on the beach almost at the old man's feet. He raised his dark eyes and looked at the motionless form, then he rose and walked with tottering footsteps to the spot. There lay Antonio, pale, cold, and dead. He had kept his word; before the bright night had passed into the brighter morning he had come back, but not as he had dreamed and hoped. The old man's trembling hands dug his grave at the foot of the red rock where Antonio had first seen the fairy. Then he turned his footsteps towards his distant, lonely home.

As soon as evening came again to visit earth and ocean, the sea-fairy rose through the waves, went up to the rock, and sat down beside the rock beneath which Antonio lay. There she sat, silent and motionless, her white hands lying idly in her lap, and her dreamy eyes looking out on the heaving billows; but down her beautiful face ran great tears, that shone in the light of the setting sun, and told the pain that throbbed in her proud and lonely heart.

Not till the hues of evening gave place to the rosy tints of dawn did the sea-fairy go back to her ocean kingdom, never to return to earth.

No mortal eye has since beheld her, and the old saga of the sea-fairy is no longer heard along the coast of Norway.

Antonio's resting-place is desolate, as of old. It is known only to the Norwegian sky, which looks down brightily and sunnily upon it, and the little waves sometimes dash over it, sparkling like the sea-fairy's tears.