Philip, confused, sat down to the table; Amine was collected as ever.  She spoke little, it is true, and appeared to commune with her own thoughts.

As soon as the repast was finished, the old priest took up his breviary, and Amine beckoning to Philip, they went out together.  They walked in silence until they arrived at the green spot where Amine had first proposed to him that she should use her mystic power.  She sat down, and Philip, fully aware of her purpose, took his seat by her in silence.

“Philip,” said Amine, taking his hand, and looking earnestly in his face, “last night you dreamed.”

“I did, indeed, Amine,” replied Philip, gravely.

“Tell me your dream; for it will be for me to expound it.”

“I fear it needs but little exposition, Amine.  All I would know is, from what intelligence the dream has been received?”

“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?’