From the Firelight Fairy Book
We read last week that the sailor was seized and taken before the King of the Under-Waters. Who told him he was just in time to witness the wedding of his second daughter. The sailor soon saw that the bridegroom was his second brother and that his eldest brother was already married to the King’s eldest daughter. He reached out to them, but they ignored him as they had forgotten all about their past lives. The King ordered him to sit near his youngest daughter and she noticed he was not eating and asked why. He told her that he was seeking the Emerald and did not want to become enchanted. She told him that it had disappeared but not to let her father know he was seeking it or he would force him to eat as the Emerald gave its owner great power. However, her eldest sister had noticed the sailor reach out to her husband and told the new bride that he was their husbands’ brother and they should get rid of him before he led them away. The story continues…
Later that evening, just as the poor sailor was standing by one of the great doors, a dozen or so stout rogues in the service of the eldest sister fell upon him, bound him with cords, and dragged him through the water to the royal stables.
Now the people of the under-waters, having no horses—for sea horses are but tiny creatures—had tamed great dolphins to carry them about. A hundred of them, each with a bronze ring in his nose, were ranged along the sides of the stables, and on the fiercest and angriest of them all, the Princess’ servants tied the sailor. How the great fish, fastened to a bar by a chain and his nose-ring, pulled, rolled, swerved aside, and thrashed his tail! But all his twistings were of no avail, for the poor sailor lad was soon fastened to his back with a rope of seaweed. Then the creature was released from his chain, given a blow on the side with a whip of shark-skin, and turned into the wilds of the under-waters.
For half an hour, the fish, frightened at his burden, fled at lightning speed over the roofs of the city, and sped on into the lonely plain. Then, ceasing his mad flight, he tried again to shake himself free of the sailor. He turned, he leaped, he dived, but all in vain, for the sailor was securely fastened to his back. Terrified anew, with a swift motion of his great fins, he shot violently to one side and rushed on and on into the dark. All that long night he fled. Toward the morning of the next day, however, the sailor managed to work one arm free, and draw the cutlass from his waist. With this he made short work of his bonds and rolled off the fish’s back. The great animal, delivered of the weight which had lain upon it, rose on the tip of its tail and shot madly toward the surface, and the sailor tumbled through the waters to the bottom.
Weak and hungry, the poor young seaman gazed about in the half-gloom, and found himself on the lower slopes of a sunken mountain rising from the ocean floor. In no direction could he find a sign of the City under the Sea. Hoping, however, to see better from the mountain’s top, he decided to climb it. Strange plants and shells lay in the crevices of the weedy rocks, schools of bright fish fled past him like living arrows, and huge crabs scuttled away as he appeared. Suddenly, lying on her side in a little ravine of the mountain, he saw a ship—the black ship of the Emerald of the Sea! Weary and weak though he was, it took the sailor but a moment to clamber aboard, and hurry past the broken masts into the captain’s cabin. A steady, green radiance shone in one corner of the weedy room, and hastening toward it, the sailor found, at last, the Emerald of the Sea. The box which had enclosed it had rotted away and fallen apart.
“Victory!” cried the sailor, “victory! The emerald is mine at last, and I shall save my father.”
He took the great jewel from the broken box and rested it in the cup of his two hands. How it glowed on the pale flesh! Then, thrusting it into a pocket and holding onto it with one hand, he hurried out again to the mountainside. In the world above, it was high noon, and the level rays of the sun beat deep into the green waters. So bright had the slope become, that the sailor lad felt sure that he could not be far from the surface of the waves. Moreover, if the mountain-top rose above the waters, it would form an island in the upper world. And so, indeed, it was. Climbing on toward the top of the mountain, the sailor first scaled a steep cliff, and at the top of this he found a gentle slope of sand. The sun’s rays now illumined the water so brightly that the air seemed only a little distance away. Presently a beachcrab ran nimbly away from beneath the sailor’s feet. The water grew very much warmer. The shore was at hand! A few steps more, and the youngest son emerged on the beach of a beautiful isle.
Half-blinded by the sun, he walked toward the dry land. There he found some delicious fruits growing, and a rippling brook of crystal water. He ate and drank, and his strength returned.
Himself again, the sailor took the Emerald of the Sea in his hands, and cried, “By the power of the Emerald of the Sea, I summon here the two elder princesses of the under-waters, and my two brothers, their husbands!” There was a sound of far thunder under the clear blue sky, and a moment later, four heads rose out of the waters, and shaking the salt spray from their eyes, the princesses and the brothers walked through the shallows to where the sailor was standing. Now, the princesses were very much frightened when they beheld the sailor holding the all-powerful emerald, and falling on their knees before him, begged him to forgive their misdeeds, and not to take away their loved ones. To be continued…