Presently she said, with a strange smile that showed her cruel little teeth gleaming between her scarlet lips, 'Why don't you ask me who _I_ am, and what I am doing here alone? do not you care to know?' 'If you will deign to tell me,' he said. 'Then I will tell you,' she said; 'I am a siren--are you not afraid _now_?' 'Why should I be afraid?' he asked, for the name had no meaning in his ears. She was disappointed; it was only her voice--nothing else, then--that deprived men of their senses; perhaps this youth was proof even against that; she longed to try, and yet she hesitated still. 'Then you have never heard of me,' she said; 'you don't know why I sit and watch for the great gilded ships you mortals build for yourselves?' 'For your pleasure, I suppose,' he answered. 'I have watched them myself many a time; they are grand as they sweep by, with their sharp brazen beaks cleaving the frothing water, and their painted sails curving out firm against the sky. It is good to hear the measured thud of the great oars and the cheerful cries of the sailors as they clamber about the cordage.' She laughed disdainfully. 'And you think I care for all that!' she cried. 'Where is the pleasure of looking idly on and admiring?--that is for them, not for me. As these galleys of yours pass, I sing--and when the sailors hear, they must come to me. Man after man leaps eagerly into the sea, and makes for the shore--until at last the oars grind and lock together, and the great ship drifts helplessly on, empty and aimless. I like that.' 'But the men?' he asked, with an uneasy wonder at her words. 'Oh, they reach the shore--some of them, and then they lie at my feet, just as you are lying now, and I sing on, and as they listen they lose all power or wish to move, nor have I ever heard them speak as you speak; they only lie there upon the sand or rock, and gaze at me always, and soon their cheeks grow hollower and hollower, and their eyes brighter and brighter--and it is I who make them so!' 'But I see them not,' said the youth, divided between hope and fear; 'the beach is bare; where, then, are all those gone who have lain here?' 'I cannot say,' she replied carelessly; 'they are not here for long; when the sea comes up it carries them away.' 'And you do not care!' he cried, struck with horror at the absolute indifference in her face; 'you do not even try to keep them here?' 'Why should I care?' said the siren lightly; 'I do not want them. More will always come when I wish. And it is so wearisome always to see the same faces, that I am glad when they go.' 'I will not believe it, siren,' groaned the young man, turning from her in bitter anguish; 'oh, you cannot be cruel!' 'No, I am not cruel,' she said in surprise. 'And why will you not believe me? It is true!' 'Listen to me,' he said passionately: 'do you know how bitter it is to die,--to leave the sunlight and the warm air, the fair land and the changing sea?'