Her skin was soft, smooth, and white, with coral pink and red flush to it. He found her eyes light green; but apparently changing in their shade. A trifle tinted very pale green over the white eyeball. The tiny capillaries on the eyeball were pale coral pink rather than red. The pupils, with a deep green light in them, were overlarge, but shrank suddenly at the slightest light, and suffused readily with moisture. Her eyelids were thin as a delicate coral veil, with curving lashes, long and thick and tawny. He found her apparently intelligent, shy and gentle. Of human stock; but different from ourselves in a score of details which he set down. A slightly rounder skull-shape; broader hips and higher breasts. Fingers and toes slimmer and longer. The skin connecting the fingers and toes crossed nearly at the middle joint, suggesting a closer heritage to a time when a membrane might have been there, making the members webbed. He found her chest high and deep, with a proportionately greater lung-capacity than ours. Her breath, he surmised, could without undue discomfort, be held for at least five minutes while under water. A human specimen of wholly different stock from any of our known earthly races. A civilization advanced as far perhaps, as our own; but obviously in a different direction. It was, he wrote down, as though on the great family tree of mankind, this were a blossom on a different branch and a wholly different limb. He felt, when the case were closely studied, that evidence would be found to show that this was the parent stock of earth-humanity. Itself risen directly from the creatures of the sea. That from this stock, it was we who branched off, to leave the depths, ascend to the air and the land and sunlight and rise through the primates into what now we were pleased to call Man. Dr. Plantet was very enthusiastic over Nereid. With scientific zeal he looked eagerly forward to the moment when he would present her to the study of our world-scientists. I remarked Arturo’s strange expression as his father said that. On the late afternoon of August 16, we were just south of Ocean and Midway Islands, those extreme northwestern outposts of the Hawaiians. It was then Arturo told us what little we were to know of those things he had learned from Nereid. We gathered in the stern chart-room; the Dolphin lay awash on the surface of a placid sea. With sudden decision Arturo brought Nereid in to join us. He shaded the light carefully for her and in the gloom of a corner of the floor, she sat watching us. It was one of the few times I had seen her. I noticed with what a quiet dignity she came in, following Arturo’s guiding hand; and with what intent, alert intelligence she sat watching and listening. She did not speak; but once or twice I saw her nod with confirmation of Arturo’s words. * * * * *