ceived?"

"Tell me your dream," replied Amine, calmly.

"I thought," replied Philip, mournfully, "that I was sailing as captain
of a vessel round the Cape; the sea was calm and the breeze light; I was
abaft; the sun went down, and the stars were more than usually
brilliant; the weather was warm, and I lay down on my cloak, with my
face to the heavens, watching the gems twinkling in the sky and the
occasionally falling meteors. I thought that I fell asleep, and awoke
with a sensation as if sinking down. I looked around me; the masts; the
rigging, the hull of the vessel--_all_ had disappeared, and I was
floating by myself upon a large, beautifully-shaped shell on the wide
waste of waters. I was alarmed, and afraid to move, lest I should
overturn my frail bark and perish. At last I perceived the fore-part of
the shell pressed down, as if a weight were hanging to it; and soon
afterwards, a small white hand, which grasped it. I remained
motionless, and would have called out that my little bark would sink,
but I could not. Gradually a figure raised itself from the waters and
leaned with both arms over the fore-part of the shell, where I first had
seen but the hand. It was a female, in form beautiful to excess; the
skin was white as driven snow; her long loose hair covered her, and the
ends floated in the water; her arms were rounded and like ivory; she
said, in a soft sweet voice--

"`Philip Vanderdecken, what do you fear? Have you not a charmed life?'

"`I know not,' replied I, `whether my life be charmed or not; but this I
know, that it is in danger.'

"`In danger!' replied she; `it might have been in danger when you were
trusting to the frail works of men, which the waves love to rend to
fragments--your _good_ ships, as you call them, which but float about
upon sufferance; but where can be the danger when in a mermaid's shell,
which the mountain wave respects, and upon which the cresting surge dare
not throw its spray? Philip Vanderdecken, you have come to seek your
father!'

"`I have,' replied I; `is it not the will of Heaven?'

"`It is your destiny--and destiny rules all above and below. Shall we
seek him together? This shell is mine; you know not how to navigate it;
shall I assist you?'

"`Will it bear us both?'

"`You will see,' replied she, laughing, as she sank down from the
fore-part of the shell, and immediately afterwards appeared at the side,
which was not more than three inches above the wa