e
night before, was at his side.

"I will guide the ship, captain," he said, "if thou art bent on going
aloft; but I fear me thou wilt see no land. Sailors who are out on their
last voyage need not look for port."

Now Sir Patrick was a brave man, and he meant to fight for life; so he
climbed up to the mast head, and clung on there, despite the driving
spray and roaring wind, which were like to drive him from his foothold.
In vain he peered through the darkness, looking to the right hand and to
the left; there was no land to be seen, nothing but the great green
waves, crested with foam, which came springing up like angry wolves,
eager to swallow the gallant ship and her luckless crew.

Suddenly his cheek grew pale, and his eyes dark with fear. "We are dead
men now," he muttered; for, not many feet below him, seated on the crest
of a massive wave, he saw the form of a beautiful woman, with a cruel
face and long fair hair, which floated like a veil on the top of the
water. 'Twas a mermaid, and he knew what the sight portended.

She held up a silver bowl to him, with a little mocking laugh on her
lips. "Sail on, sail on, my guid Scots lords," she cried, and her sweet,
false voice rose clear and shrill above the tumult of the waves, "for I
warrant ye'll soon touch dry land."

"We may touch the land, but 'twill be the land that lies fathoms deep
below the sea," replied Sir Patrick grimly, and then the weird creature
laughed again, and floated away in the darkness.

When she had passed Sir Patrick glanced down at the deck, and the sight
that met him there only deepened his gloom.

Worn with the beating of the waves, a bolt had sprung in the good ship's
side, and a plank had given way, and the cruel green water was pouring
in through the hole.

Verily, they were facing death itself now; yet the strong man's heart
did not quail.

He had quailed at the sight of the mermaid's mocking eyes, but he looked
on the face of death calmly, as befitted a brave and a good man. Perhaps
the thought came to him, as it came to another famous seaman long years
afterwards, that heaven is as near by sea as by land, and in the thought
there was great comfort.

There was but one more thing to be done; after that they were helpless.

"Now, my good Scots lords," he cried, and I trow a look of amusement
played round his lips even at that solemn hour, "now is the time for
those featherbeds of thine. There are five and fifty of them; odds t