Part 7

"To destroy you," was the quick answer, and the magician turned for an instant to flash his eyes upon the beautiful mermaid. "For two hundred years I have been awaiting a chance to get within my power some friend of Anko the Sea Serpent--of Anko, whom I hate!" he added, smiling sweetly. "When you left your palace to-day my swift spies warned me, and so I sent the sea devils to capture you. Often have they tried to do this before, but always failed. To-day, acting by my command, they tricked you, and by surrounding you, forced you to the entrance of my enchanted castle. The result is a fine capture of important personages. I have now in my power the queen and princess of the fairy mermaids, as well as two wandering earth people, and I assure you I shall take great enjoyment in destroying you utterly."

"You are a coward," declared the Queen, proudly. "You dared not meet us in the open sea."

"No; I dare not leave this castle," Zog admitted, still smiling. "But here, in my own domain, my power is supreme. Nothing can interfere with my vengeance."

"That remains to be seen," said Aquareine, firmly meeting the gaze of the terrible eyes.

"Of course," he answered, nodding his head with a graceful movement. "You will try to thwart me and escape. You will pit your fairy power against my powers of magic. This will give me great pleasure, for the more you struggle the greater will be my revenge."

"But why should you seek revenge upon us?" asked Clia. "We have never harmed you."

"That is true," replied Zog. "I bear you no personal ill will. But you are friends of my great enemy, King Anko, and it will annoy him very much when he finds that you have been destroyed by me. I cannot hurt the rascally old sea serpent himself, but through you I can make him feel my vengeance."

"The mermaids have existed thousands of years," said the Queen, in a tone of pride. "Do you imagine the despised and conquered Zog has power to destroy them?"

"I do not know," was the quiet answer. "It will be interesting to discover which is the more powerful."

"I challenge you to begin the test at once, vile magician!" exclaimed Aquareine.

"There is no hurry, fair Queen," answered Zog, in his softest tones. "I have been so many years in accomplishing your capture that it is foolish to act hastily now. Besides, I am lonely. Here, in my forced retirement, I see only those uninteresting earth mortals whom I have made my slaves, for all sea dwellers are forbidden to serve me save the sea devils, and they dare not enter my castle. I have saved many mortals from drowning and brought them here to people my castle, but I do not love mortals. Two lovely mermaids are much more interesting, and before I allow you to perish I shall have much amusement in witnessing your despair, and your struggles to escape. You are now my prisoners. By slow degrees I shall wear out your fairy powers and break your hearts, as well as the hearts of these earth dwellers who have no magic powers, and I think it will be a long time before I finally permit you to die."

"That's all right," said Trot, cheerfully. "The longer I live the better I'll be satisfied."

"That's how I feel about it," added Cap'n Bill. "Don't get in a hurry to kill us, Zog; it'll be such a wear an' tear on your nerves. Jes' take it easy an' let us live as long as we can."

"Don't you care to die?" asked the magician.

"It's a thing I never longed for," the sailor replied. "You see, we had no business to go on a trip with the mermaids, to begin with. I've allus heard tell that mermaids is dangerous, an' no one as met 'em ever lived to tell the tale. Eh, Trot?"

"That's what you said, Cap'n Bill."

"So, I guess we're done for, one way 'r 'nother; an' it don't matter much which. But Trot's a good child, an' mighty young an' tender. It don't seem like her time has come to die. I'd like to have her sent safe home to her mother. So I've got this 'ere propersition to make, Zog: If your magic could make _me_ die twice, or even _three_ times fer good measure, why you go ahead an' do it an' I won't complain. All I ask is fer you to send this little girl safe back to dry land again."

"Don't you do it, Zog!" cried Trot, indignantly, and turning to Cap'n Bill she added: "I'm not goin' to leave you down here in all this mess, Cap'n, and don't you think it. If one of us gets out of the muddle we're in, we'll both get out; so don't you make any bargains with Zog to die twice."

Zog listened to this conversation very carefully.

"The dying does not amount to much," he said; "it is the thinking about it that hurts you mortals most. I've watched many a shipwreck at sea, and the people would howl and scream for hours before the ship broke up. Their terror was very enjoyable. But when the end came they all drowned as peacefully as if they were going to sleep, so it didn't amuse me at all."

"I'm not worrying," said Trot.

"Ner me," said Cap'n Bill. "You'll find we can take what comes jes' as easy as anybody."

"I do not expect to get much fun from you poor mortals," said Zog, carelessly. "You are merely a side show to my circus--a sort of dessert to my feast of vengeance. When the time comes I can find a hundred ways to kill you. My most interesting prisoners are these pretty mermaids, who claim that none of their race has ever yet died, or been destroyed. The first mermaid ever created is living yet--and I am told she is none other than Queen Aquareine. So I have a pretty problem before me, to invent some way to destroy the mermaids, or put them out of existence. And it will require some thought."

"Also, it will require some power you do not possess," suggested the Queen.

"That may be," replied Zog, softly; "but I am going to experiment, and I believe I shall be able to cause you a lot of pain and sorrow before I finally make an end of you. I have not lived twenty-seven thousand years, Aquareine, without getting a certain amount of wisdom, and I am more powerful than you suspect."

"You are a monster and a wicked magician," said the Mermaid Queen.

"I am," agreed Zog; "but I cannot help it. I was created part man, part bird, part fish, part beast and part reptile, and such a monstrosity could not be otherwise than wicked. Everybody hates me, and I hate everybody."

"Why don't you kill yourself?" asked Trot.

"I've tried that, and failed," he answered. "Only one being in the world has power to destroy me, and that is King Anko, the sea serpent."

"Then you'd better let him do it," advised the little girl.

"No; much as I long to die, I cannot allow King Anko the pleasure of killing me. He has always been my worst enemy, and it would be such a joy to him to kill me that I really cannot allow him. Indeed, I have always hoped to kill Anko. I have now been three thousand six hundred and forty-two years, eleven months and nine days figuring out a plan to destroy old Anko, and as yet I have not discovered a way."

"I'd give it up, if I were you," advised Trot. "Don't you think you could get some fun out of trying to be good?"

"No!" cried Zog, and his voice was not so soft as before. "Listen, Aquareine: You and your attendants shall be prisoners in this castle until I can manage to stop you from living. Rooms will be placed at your disposal, and I wish you to go to them at once, as I am tired of looking at you."

"You're no more tired than we are," remarked Trot. "It's lucky you can't see yourself, Zog."

He turned his glowing eyes full upon her.

"The worst of my queer body I keep concealed," he said. "If ever you see it, you will scream with terror."

He touched a bell beside him and the girl was surprised to find how clearly its tones rang out through the water. In an instant the boy Sacho appeared and bowed low before his dreadful master.

"Take the mermaids and the child to the Rose Chamber," commanded Zog; "and take the old man-fish to the Peony Room."

Sacho turned to obey.

"Are the outer passages well guarded?" asked the monster.

"Yes; as you have commanded," said the boy.

"Then you may allow the prisoners to roam at will throughout the castle. Now, go!"

The prisoners followed Sacho from the room, glad to get away. The presence of this evil being had grown oppressive to them, and Zog had himself seemed ill at ease during the last few minutes. The robe so closely wound around his body moved jerkily, as if something beneath disturbed it, and at such times Zog shifted nervously in his seat.

Sacho's thin little legs trotted through the water, and led the way into a different passage from the one by which they had entered. They swam slowly after him and breathed easier when they had left the golden domed chamber, where their wicked enemy sat enthroned.

"Well, how do you like him?" asked Sacho, with a laugh.

"We hate him!" declared Trot, emphatically.

"Of course you do," replied Sacho. "But, you're wasting time hating anything. It doesn't do you any good, or him any harm. Can you sing?"

"A little," said Trot; "but I don't feel like singing now."

"You're wrong about that," the boy asserted. "Anything that keeps you from singing is foolishness, unless it's laughter. Laughter, joy and song are the only good things in the world."

Trot did not answer this queer speech, for just then they came to a flight of stairs, and Sacho climbed up them, while the others swam. And now they were in a lofty, broad corridor having many doors hung with seaweed draperies. At one of these doorways Sacho stopped and said:

"Here is the Rose Chamber, where the master commands you to live until you die. You may wander anywhere in the castle as you please; to leave it is impossible. Whenever you return to the Rose Chamber you will know it by this design of roses, sewn in pearls upon the hangings. The Peony Room, where the man-fish is to live, is the next one farther on."

"Thank you," replied Queen Aquareine. "Are we to be fed?"

"Meals will be served in your rooms. If you desire anything, ring the bell and some of the slaves will be sure to answer it. I am mostly in attendance upon my master, but whenever I am at liberty I will look after your comfort myself."

Again they thanked the strange boy, and he turned and left them. They could hear him whistle and sing as he returned along the passage. Then Princess Clia parted the curtains that her queen and companions might enter the Rose Chamber.

The rooms Zog had given his prisoners were as handsome as all other parts of this strange, enchanted castle. Gold was used plentifully in the decorations, and in the Rose Chamber occupied by the mermaids and Trot, golden roses formed a border around the entire room. The sea maidens had evidently been expected, for the magician had provided couches for them to recline upon, similar to the ones used in the mermaid palaces. The frames were of mother-of-pearl and the cushions of soft, white sponges. In the room were toilet tables, mirrors, ornaments and many articles used by earth people, which they afterward learned had been plundered by Zog from sunken ships and brought to his castle by his allies, the sea devils.

While the mermaids were examining and admiring their room, Cap'n Bill went to the Peony Room to see what it was like, and found his quarters very cosy and interesting. There were pictures on the walls--portraits of grave-looking porpoises, bashful seals, and smug and smiling walruses. Some of the wall panels were formed of mirrors and reflected clearly the interior of the room. Around the ceiling was a frieze of imitation peonies in silver, and the furniture was peony-shaped, the broad leaves being bent to form seats and couches.

Beside a pretty dressing table hung a bell cord, with a tassel at the end. Cap'n Bill did not know it was a bell cord, so he pulled it to see what would happen and was puzzled to find that nothing seemed to happen at all, the bell being too far away for him to hear it. Then he began looking at the treasures contained in this royal apartment, and was much pleased with a golden statue of a mermaid, that resembled Princess Clia in feature. A silver flower vase upon a stand contained a bouquet of gorgeous peonies, "as nat'ral as life," said Cap'n Bill, although he saw plainly that they must be made of metal.

Trot came in just then to see how her dear friend was located. She entered from the doorway that connected the two rooms, and said:

"Isn't it pretty, Cap'n? And who'd ever think that awful creature Zog owned such a splendid castle, and kept his prisoners in such lovely rooms?"

"I once heard tell," said the sailor, "of a foreign people that sacrificed human bein's to please their pagan gods; an' before they killed 'em outright they stuffed the victims full o' good things to eat, an' dressed 'em in pretty clothes, an' treated 'em like princes. That's why I don't take much comfort in our fine surroundin's, Trot. This Zog is a pagan, if ever there was one, an' he don't mean us any good, you may depend on't."

"No," replied Trot, soberly; "I'm sure he doesn't expect us to be happy here. But, I'm going to fool him and have just as good a time as I can."

As she spoke they both turned around--an easy thing to do with a single flop of their flexible tails--and Cap'n Bill uttered a cry of surprise. Just across the room stood a perfect duplicate of himself. The round head, with its bald top and scraggly whiskers, the sailor cap and shirt, the wide pantaloons--even the wooden leg--each and every one were exact copies of those owned by Cap'n Bill. Even the expression in the light blue eyes was the same, and it is no wonder the old sailor stared at his "double" in amazement. But the next minute he laughed, and said:

"Why, Trot, it's _me_ reflected in a mirror. But, at first, I thought it was some one else."

Trot was staring, too.

"Look, Cap'n!" she whispered; "look at the wooden leg."

"Well, it's _my_ wooden leg, ain't it?" he inquired.

"If it is, it can't be a reflection in a mirror," she argued, "for _you_ haven't got a wooden leg. You've got a fish's tail."

The old sailor was so startled by this truth that he gave a great flop with his tail that upset his balance, and made him keel a somersault in the water before he got right side up again. Then he found the other sailorman laughing at him, and was horrified to find the "reflection" advancing toward them, by stumping along on its wooden leg.

"Keep away! Git out, there!" yelled Cap'n Bill. "You're a ghost--the ghost o' me that once was--an' I can't bear the sight o' you. Git out!"

"Did you ring jes' to tell me to git out?" asked the other, in a mild voice.

"I--I didn't ring," declared Cap'n Bill.

"You did; you pulled that bell cord," said the one-legged.

"Oh; did pullin' that thing ring a bell?" inquired the Cap'n, a little ashamed of his ignorance and reassured by hearing the "ghost" talk.

"It surely did," was the reply; "and Sacho told me to answer your bell an' look after you. So I'm a-lookin' after you."

"I wish you wouldn't," protested Cap'n Bill. "I've no use fer--fer--ghostses, anyhow."

The strange sailor began to chuckle at hearing this, and his chuckle was just like Cap'n Bill's chuckle--so full of merry humor that it usually made every one laugh with him.

"Who are you?" asked Trot, who was very curious and much surprised.

"I'm Cap'n Joe," was the reply. "Cap'n Joe Weedles, formerly o' the brig 'Gladsome' an' now a slave o' Zog at the bottom o' the sea."

"J--J--Joe Wee--Weedles!" gasped Cap'n Bill, amazed; "Joe Weedles o' the 'Gladsome'! Why, dash my eyes, mate, you must be my brother!"

"Are _you_ Bill Weedles?" asked the other. And then he added: "But, no; you can't be. Bill wasn't no merman. He were a human critter, like myself."

"That's what _I_ am," said Cap'n Bill, hastily; "I'm a human critter, too. I've jes' borrered this fishtail to swim with while I'm visitin' the mermaids."

"Well, well," said Cap'n Joe, in astonishment; "who'd 'a' thought it! An' who'd ever 'a' thought as I'd find my long lost brother in Zog's enchanted castle, full fifty fathoms deep down in the wet, wet water!"

"Why, as fer that," replied Cap'n Bill, "it's _you_ as is the long lost brother, not me. You an' your ship disappeared many a year ago, an' ain't never been heard of since; while, as fer me, I'm livin' on earth yet."

"You don't look it, to all appearances," remarked Cap'n Joe, in a reflective tone of voice. "But I'll agree it's many a year since I saw the top o' the water, an' I'm not expectin' to ever tramp on dry land again."

"Are you dead, or drownded, or what?" asked Cap'n Bill.

"Neither one nor t'other," was the answer. "But Zog gave me gills, so's I could live in the water like fishes do, an' if I got on land I couldn't breathe air any more 'n a fish out o' water can. So I guess as long as I live I'll hev to stay down here."

"Do you like it?" asked Trot.

"Oh, I don't objec' much," said Cap'n Joe. "There ain't much excitement here, fer we don't catch a flock o' mermaids ev'ry day; but the work is easy an' the rations fair. I might 'a' been worse off, you know, for when my brig was wrecked I'd 'a' gone to Davy Jones's Locker if Zog hadn't happened to find me an' made me a fish."

"You don't look as much like a fish as Cap'n Bill does," observed Trot.

"P'raps not," said Cap'n Joe; "but I notice Bill ain't got any gills, an' breathes like you an' the mermaids does. When he gets back to land he'll have his two legs again, an' live in comfort breathin' air."

"I won't have two legs," asserted Cap'n Bill, "for when I'm on earth I'm fitted with one wooden leg, jes' the same as you are, Joe."

"Oh; I hadn't heard o' that, Bill; but I'm not surprised," replied Brother Joe. "Many a sailor gets to wear a wooden leg, in time. Mine's hick'ry."

"So's mine," said Cap'n Bill, with an air of pride. "I'm glad I've run across you, Joe, for I often wondered what had become of you. Seems too bad, though, to have you spend all your life under water."

"What's the odds?" asked Cap'n Joe. "I never could keep away from the water since I was a boy, an' there's more dangers to be met floatin' on it than there is soakin' in it. An' one other thing pleases me when I think on it: I'm parted from my wife--a mighty good woman with a tongue like a two-edge sword--an' my pore widder'll get the insurance money an' live happy. As fer me, Bill, I'm a good deal happier than I was when she kep' scoldin' me from mornin' to night every minute I was home."

"Is Zog a kind master?" asked Trot.

"I can't say he's kind," replied Cap'n Joe, "for he's as near a devil as any livin' critter _can_ be. He grumbles an' growls in his soft voice all day, an' hates himself an' everybody else. But I don't see much of him. There's so many of us slaves here that Zog don't pay much attention to us, an' we have a pretty good time when the ol' magician is shut up in his den, as he mostly is."

"Could you help us to escape?" asked the child.

"Why, I don't know how," admitted Cap'n Joe. "There's magic all around us, and we slaves are never allowed to leave this great cave. I'll do what I can, o' course; but Sacho is the boy to help you, if anyone can. That little chap knows a heap, I can tell you. So now, if nothin' more's wanted, I must get back to work."

"What work do you do?" Cap'n Bill asked.

"I sew buttons on Zog's clothes. Every time he gets mad he busts his buttons off, an' I have to sew 'em on again. As he's mad most o' the time, it keeps me busy."

"I'll see you again, won't I, Joe?" said Cap'n Bill.

"No reason why you shouldn't--if you manage to keep alive," said Cap'n Joe. "But you mustn't forget, Bill, that Zog has his grip on you, an' I've never known anything to escape him yet."

Saying this the old sailor began to stump toward the door, but tripped his foot against his wooden leg and gave a swift dive forward. He would have fallen flat had he not grabbed the drapery at the doorway, and saved himself by holding fast to it with both hands. Even then he rolled and twisted so awkwardly before he could get upon his legs that Trot had to laugh outright at his antics.

"This hick'ry leg," said Cap'n Joe, "is so blamed light that it always wants to float. Agga-Groo, the goldworker, has promised me a gold leg, that will stay down; but he never has time to make it. You're mighty lucky, Bill, to have a merman's tail, instead o' legs."

"I guess I am, Joe," replied Bill; "for in such a wet country the fishes have the best of it. But I ain't sure I'd like this sort o' thing always."

"Think o' the money you'd make in a side show," said Cap'n Joe, with his funny chuckling laugh. Then he pounded his wooden leg against the hard floor, and managed to hobble from the room without more accidents.

When he had gone, Trot said:

"Aren't you glad to find your brother again, Cap'n Bill?"

"Why, so-so," replied the sailor. "I don't know much about Joe, seein' as we haven't met before for many a long year; an' all I remember about our boyhood days is that we fit an' pulled hair most o' the time. But what worries me most is Joe's lookin' so much like me myself--wooden leg an' all. Don't you think it's rather cheeky an' unbrotherly, Trot?"

"Perhaps he can't help it," suggested the child. "And, anyhow, he'll never be able to live on land again."

"No," said Cap'n Bill, with a sigh, "Joe's a fish, now, an' so he ain't likely to be took for me by any of our friends on the earth."

When Trot and Cap'n Bill entered the Rose Chamber they found the two mermaids reclining before an air fountain that was sending thousands of tiny bubbles up through the water.

"These fountains of air are excellent things," remarked Queen Aquareine, "for they keep the water fresh and sweet, and that is the more necessary where it is confined by walls, as it is in this castle. But, now let us counsel together, and decide what to do in the emergency that confronts us."

"How can we tell what to do, without knowing what's going to happen?" asked Trot.

"Something's sure to happen," said Cap'n Bill.

As if to prove his words a gong suddenly sounded at their door, and in walked a fat little man clothed all in white, including a white apron and white cap. His face was round and jolly, and he had a big mustache that curled up at the ends.

"Well, well!" said the little man, spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his hips as he stood looking at them; "of all the queer things in the sea, you're the queerest! Mermaids, eh?"

"Don't bunch us that way!" protested Cap'n Bill.

"You are quite wrong," said Trot; "I'm a--a girl."

"With a fish's tail?" he asked, laughing at her.

"That's only just for a while," she said; "while I'm in the water, you know. When I'm at home on the land I walk just as you do--an' so does Cap'n Bill."

"But we haven't any gills," remarked the Cap'n, looking closely at the little man's throat; "so I take it we're not as fishy as some others."

"If you mean me, I must admit you are right," said the little man, twisting his mustaches. "I'm as near a fish as a man can be. But you see, Cap'n, without the gills that make me a fish I could not live under water."

"When it comes to that, you've no business to live under water," asserted the sailor. "But I s'pose you're a slave and can't help it."

"I'm chief cook for that old horror, Zog. And that reminds me, good mermaids--or good people, or good girls and sailors, or whatever you are--that I'm sent here to ask what you'd like to eat."

"Glad to see you, sir," said Cap'n Bill. "I'm nearly starved, myself."

"I had it in mind," said the little man, "to prepare a regular mermaid dinner; but since you're not mermaids--"

"Oh, two of us are," said the Queen, smiling. "I, my good cook, am Aquareine, the ruler of the mermaids, and this is the Princess Clia."