Chapter X: A Fish Tea-Party

As Dick walked along on the dim brown-gray sand on the bottom of the sea, he began to notice, as his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the faint greenish light, the many marvels which were all around him. Never, in after years, could he quite recall all the strange and beautiful things that he saw during that submarine stroll, but what he did remember made him long many times to visit the sea-floor once again, and look at the wonderful sights which were to be seen there.

Besides the masses of many-coloured sea-weed, and the odd, bright-hued sea-flowers that grew there, there were whole forests of coral, snow-white, pale yellow, and deep scarlet. There were narrow rock-paths where gold glittered in the crevices, and great lumps of brown and yellow agate gleamed dimly through the water. There were heaps of pearls,—as though some mysterious sea-miser had been collecting and hoarding them; and garnets that made the water all around look as though it were dyed crimson. The sea-moss of purple and red and dull green hung waveringly from the rocks, and lay in patches on the sand-floor, like strange, gaudy rugs.

The sea-trees moved slowly with the faint motion of the deep-sea currents, and in the distance looked like dark-green shadows, stirring across a sheet of glass. Everywhere were shells—large and small, pink, white, black, and gray, lying at his feet, lodged in niches in the high, black rocks, floating, caught in tangles of dull sea-weed. And everywhere, too, were fishes, some of them quite ordinary-looking creatures, but others different from any that Dick had ever seen even in picture-books.

Suddenly the rock-walled path which he had been following came to an end, and he found himself in a huge, green-washed clearing, with distant walls and a clean-swept, sandy floor. This place was filled with all sorts of strange sea-creatures,—principally fish, although there were several queer things that did not look as though they belonged in the natural history books.

In the very centre of the big crowded circle sat an old woman, in a dark green cloak and hood, which floated away from her skinny face and figure whenever she waved her arm—which she did very often. For she seemed to be the mistress of ceremonies down here, and all the other creatures listened with respect to what she said. When she saw Dick, she beckoned to him, and he went up to her feeling even more frightened than when he had faced Mother Goose or the Sea Kobold.

“I am the Old Witch of the Sea,” she said. “And my husband is the Old Man of the Sea. Have you ever read ‘Sinbad the Sailor’?”

Dick shook his head.

“In that case,” said the Witch, thoughtfully, “I am not sure whether or not you would better stay to tea.”

“Oh, is this a party?” asked Dick eagerly, looking around him with new interest.

“Yes,” said the Witch, proudly. “I give a tea-party every week for the fish. The Sea Kobold, the real ruler of this sea, has become so bad-tempered, since they screwed him in here, that he won’t do a single thing for the amusement of his poor unfortunate subjects; so, of course, I feel it my duty to do what I can to cheer them up. Do you know him, by the way?”

“The Sea Kobold?” said Dick, a little bewildered. “Yes, I—I—have met him. He didn’t seem to like me very much, though.”

“Dear, dear!” said the Witch. “Then I’ll warrant that he never even offered you a cup of tea!”

“No, indeed!” answered Dick.

“Dear, dear!” exclaimed the Witch again. “Then you must certainly come to my tea-party, even if you have never heard of my husband, the Old Man of the Sea.”

She motioned Dick to sit down on the sand, between two horrid-looking fishes, and began to bustle about hospitably, among a number of queer-shaped shells which, Dick gathered, took the place of cups at fish tea-parties.

“With or without salt?” asked the Witch.

Dick started.

“I—I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “What did you say?”

“I _said_, ‘with or without salt’!” snapped the Witch, holding a pink and orange shell in her hand.

“Without, I think,—thank you,” answered Dick, as politely as he could.

“You’re making a great mistake,” the Witch told him seriously. “Never take tea in the sea without salt!”

Dick said he would take salt, after all, and the Witch brought him the pink and orange shell, filled with a pale liquid which tasted as though it were made of sea-weed. As a matter of fact, it _was_ made of sea-weed.

“Why doesn’t it spill out?” he asked.

“Why doesn’t _what_ spill out?” said the Witch.

“The—the tea,” said Dick, wondering more and more how you could drink liquid when you were sitting under the water.

“Because there isn’t anywhere to spill it!” said the Witch. “Stupid!”

Dick drank his salt tea, and found that it tasted better after you had become a little used to it. The fish seemed to enjoy it immensely.

As they all sipped their tea, Dick had a chance to look at his fellow-guests more closely. They were a queer collection.

On one side of him sat a big skate-fish, which looked so ridiculous that Dick was afraid to stare at him long lest he should laugh out loud. He looked just like a big pie-plate, with an eye set in each side, and the funniest little wisp of a tail that you ever saw. On the other was a shark, with a gray back, white waistcoat effect, a square head, and two enormous sets of saw-like teeth. Next came a mackerel, all brown and dappled; then a bluefish, almost black in colour; then a silver salmon; then a huge-mouthed shad; then a haddock, a cod, and a porpoise which seemed to have some trouble in overcoming its desire to keep jumping all the time; then a butter-fish,—flat like a small pancake; then a short, stumpy porgie; then a bull-head, thick and dull-looking, with two little delicate horns on his ugly forehead; then a sea-trout, with the prettiest suit of orange-spotted brown and deep pink; then a swordfish, waving his sword-snout about in what looked like a very dangerous manner; then a bass, and a sunfish with fins set above and below, like enormous sun-rays.

On the farther side of the great circle there were a number of even more extraordinary fish. There was an octopus, or devil-fish,—the kind that try to pull sailors out of their boats and crush them to death with their long, strong, innumerable arms; a tarpon, huge and beautiful; a cuttle-fish, floating in a sort of inky halo; and, far in the background, a monster whale. He had an appetite in keeping with his size, and the Old Witch of the Sea had to take him fifty shells of tea before he was even sufficiently satisfied to blow his thanks in a great spurt of foaming water.

Dick also noticed a number of green lobsters and crabs of all sizes, and scattered about on the ground were masses of oysters, clams, mussels, and scollops,—their small round shells making the prettiest sort of a pattern in blue, gray, and black. Then, too, there were countless eels, wriggling their long grayish-green snaky bodies through the water on all sides.

But after a while all the sea-weed tea was drunk, and even the whale swam lumberingly away, and all the smaller fishes wriggled their thanks to the Witch and departed likewise, and Dick was left quite alone with his hostess.

“And now,” said the Old Witch of the Sea, “what can I do for you, little mortal boy?”

Dick explained his trouble, and asked her if she could not possibly help him to reach the surface of the water and continue his journey to the City of the Wicked King.

“No,” said the Witch, shaking her head thoughtfully. “I am wise and old,—oh, very, very old, indeed! But I cannot help you in this. But I can take you to someone who _can_ help you; only you must come with me obediently, and do everything that I tell you to, and not stop to talk with the sea-folk on your way.”

“Oh, indeed, indeed I will do just what you tell me to!” cried Dick, earnestly. “May we not start at once, please? And—and—” he added hesitatingly, “I am very much obliged for the tea.”

The Old Witch of the Sea bowed with dignity, and said, “You are entirely welcome, I am sure,” in a very grand way. Then, as they began to walk on across the sand, she proceeded to talk further about herself,—her great age and her even greater wisdom.

“You see,” said the Witch, “_I_ am one of the oldest inhabitants of the ocean. _I_ it was who gave Hans Andersen’s poor Little Mermaid her pretty feet, that hurt her so terribly until she was turned into sea-foam. _I_ told Mr. Andersen about the matter myself, by the bye. And _I_ fitted out Sinbad’s Cave. And _I_ sent word to the three Rhine maidens to come here and live after they had gotten back their gold. I explained that though Alberich and the gods and all those other horrid interfering creatures were very properly dead and gone, they never could tell what might happen in that Rhine neighbourhood,—horrid, scandalous place, I call it,—so they came here to live. Would you like to call on them? They live just around the corner.”

And without waiting for Dick to answer, she whisked him around a big black rock, and into the presence of three very pretty young women, who were swimming about and singing a soft, rippling song. In a cleft on the rock glowed something bright and yellow. Dick did not know then that it was the famous Rhine gold.

“I want to present to you—” began the Witch; but the three young women only cried, “We are busy guarding our gold,—don’t interrupt us!” And they began to sing and swim faster than ever.

“Mannerless creatures!” grumbled the Witch, as they went on their way once more. “Almost as bad as that Lorelei girl. She lives farther down the rock-street, so we won’t call on her. She’s just as ungrateful as the rest, though I got _her_ here too.”

At that moment a crowd of children came romping by. They were queer-looking little things, half of their bodies made up of scales and fins and fish-tails, and the other half of rosy pink and white flesh and blood. With them came a number of strange fishy animals that barked.

“What are they?” asked Dick.

“Mer-children with their pets, the sea-dogs,” responded the Witch.

“Come and play with us,” cried the Mer-children when they saw Dick. “Come and play with the starfish, and have a ride on one of our sea-horses.”

But the Witch would not let him join them, even for a moment.

“The Mer-people are dangerous folk,” she told him. “These children are not like the Water Babies of whom you may have heard. If you played with _these_ too long, you would lose your own human soul, and become a Make Believe person, like the rest of us.”

They went on in silence for a minute or two.

“Oh, how pretty!” cried Dick, suddenly.

He pointed to a group of lovely maidens and handsome young men (all with bodies that ended in shining fish-tails) who were swimming gracefully through the water, while two sad-faced men, with wreaths of pale blue flowers in their hair, played a soft, slow melody upon harps.

“The Mermen and Mermaids are having a ball,” said the Witch. “And they have induced two of the Necker-folk to play for them. The Necker are the saddest race of elves in the water, for they are always longing for souls to be given them. Even while they play for the gay Mer-people to dance, they are thinking of the souls they have not yet won.”

They passed all sorts of queer beasts as they journeyed on. There were not only sea-horses and sea-dogs, but sea-serpents that seemed to have been painted all the colours of the rainbow, and shiny, emerald-green sea-dragons, and one terrible great thing, which seemed to be half asleep, and about which the Witch said that a gentleman called Tennyson had once written a poem. She said that the name of the Thing was the Kraken.

So on and on they went, until Dick’s mind had become a sort of vague jumble of queer fishy sights, and it seemed as though he had lived forever at the bottom of the sea.

And suddenly he discovered that he was alone! The Old Witch of the Sea had left him, and he was all by himself in the awful dark green depths of the ocean that lay under the Sea of Glass!

What had become of his guide? Had she left him on purpose, or had she been called away, in some queer fairy way which he did not understand? Or was it possible that she had indeed brought him to the place where he was to be given the help he had asked?

He looked about him on every side, and even up into the green water over his head, but he could not see even a fish! He was utterly alone, this time! Now, at last, everything was quite hopeless.

“Dear, dear, dear!” cried a sweet, half-mocking voice beside him. “What is the matter? Why do you look so sad, little mortal boy?”

XI

_Into the City of the Wicked King_