“We’ve told you,” said Mavis gently enough, though she was frightfully disappointed that the Mermaid after having in the handsomest manner turned out to be a Mermaid, should be such a very short-tempered one. And when they had talked about her all day and paid the threepence each extra to see her close, and put on their best white dresses too. “We’ve told you—we want to help you. Another Sabrina in the sea told us to. _She_ didn’t tell us anything about you being a magic-mistress. She just said ‘they die in captivity.’” [Illustration: “_‘Translucent wave,’ indeed!_”] “Well, thank you for coming,” said the Mermaid. “If she really said that it must be one of two things—either the sun is in the House of Liber—which is impossible at this time of the year—or else the rope I was caught with must be made of llama’s hair, and _that’s_ impossible in these latitudes. Do you know anything about the rope they caught me with?” “No,” said Bernard and Kathleen. But the others said, “It was a lariat.” “Ah,” said the Mermaid, “my worst fears are confirmed—But who could have expected a lariat on these shores? But that must have been it. Now I know why, though I have been on the point of working the magic of the Great Storm at least five hundred times since my capture, some unseen influence has always held me back.” “You mean,” said Bernard, “you feel that it wouldn’t work, so you didn’t try.” A rattling, ripping sound outside, beginning softly, waxed louder and louder so as almost to drown their voices. It was the drum, and it announced the beginning of the circus. The Spangled Child put his head in and said, “Hurry up or you’ll miss my Infant Prodigious Act on the Horse with the Tambourines,” and took his head out again. “Oh, dear,” said Mavis, “and we haven’t arranged a single thing about rescuing you.” “No more you have,” said the Mermaid carelessly. “Look here,” said Francis, “you do _want_ to be rescued, don’t you? “Of course I do,” replied the Mermaid impatiently, “now I know about the llama rope. But I can’t walk even if they’d let me, and you couldn’t carry me. Couldn’t you come at dead of night with a chariot—I could lift myself into it with your aid—then you could drive swiftly hence, and driving into the sea I could drop from the chariot and escape while you swam ashore.” “I don’t believe we could—any of it,” said Bernard, “let alone swimming ashore with horses and chariots. Why, Pharaoh himself couldn’t do that, you know.” And even Mavis and Francis added helplessly, “I don’t see how we’re to get a chariot,” and “do you think of some other way.” “I shall await you,” said the lady in the tank with perfect calmness, “at dead of night.” With that she twisted the seaweed closely around her head and shoulders and sank slowly to the bottom of the tank. And the children were left staring blankly at each other, while in the circus tent music sounded and the soft heavy pad-pad of hoofs on sawdust. “What shall we do?” Francis broke the silence.