up a hand with all her fingers spread out. "Five! Five!"
she demanded shrilly. "Every one of you give one gulden. All this you
gave is to my friends. Not enough for me. I have more. I _always_ have
more. One gulden every person."

"Nonsense," said I in Dutch. "Here's another gulden. Take that and go
away. It's twice too much for you."

I flung her the money, and she clutched it; but she had not finished
with us yet, nor had the others. Surprised and horrified at the sudden
change in the pink and white angels, the ladies turned away, and hurried
toward the boat. For an instant the creatures were abashed by my
knowledge of Dutch, but it was only for an instant. The mother of nine,
standing in the doorway of the green bandbox house, baby in arms,
shrieked encouragement to her daughter. The Siren clattered after us
with angrily ringing sabots, raging for money; the children cried; the
friends shouted frank criticisms of our features, our hats, our manners.
I would have gone away without rewarding their blackmail with another
penny; but in desperation Starr turned and dashed four or five gulden at
the crowd. The coins rolled, and the bright beings swooped, more than
ever like a flock of gaudy, savage birds in their greed.

Thus we left them, and I saw that the ladies were thankful to be safe
aboard "Lorelei" again.

"Fiends!" gasped the Chaperon, gazing shoreward in a kind of evil
fascination. "And we called them angels and cherubs! I think you are
good, Jonkheer, not to say, 'I told you so.'"

"They're terrible--beautiful and terrible," said Starr, "like figures
that have been brought to life and have sprung at you out of a picture,
to suck your blood--in answer to some wicked wish, that you regret the
minute it's uttered."

"It was a shock to be undeceived, just at the last!" sighed Phyllis. "My
nerves are quite upset."

"I shall dream of them to-night," said Nell; "so don't be surprised,
everybody, if you hear screams in the dark hours. Still, I'm glad we
went; I wouldn't have missed it."

"Nor I," added the Chaperon. "I feel as if we'd paid a visit to some
village of the Orient, and been repulsed by savages with great
slaughter. And--I wasn't going to mention it if they'd stayed nice, it
would have seemed so _treacherous_; but did you notice, in that
wonderful little waxwork house, there was no visible place to _wash_?"

"They don't wash," said I, "except their hands and faces. Most Dutch
peasants consider bat