And he slept, and as he slept he dreamed a dream. He was out over the ocean, and he heard a mermaid singing, and she sang so sweetly that the sea lost its saltiness, and as she sang, a great winged ship with cartoon sails churned into view, and it was trawling a vast net, and in that net were vast numbers of dolphins, and sea horses, and all the fish of the deep, and then the net scooped the mermaid into its webbing as well. The fish swirled everywhere, and the net lifted, and Mr. Starbuck and Mr. Towers ordered the net spilled out over the great deck of the ship, awaiting the Captain's arrival. And they gaffed the mermaid, piercing her tail, and threw her clear of the twisted mass of dying fish. And they took a large knife, and ripped her tail in half up to the hips, and the blood was everywhere. And her tail became two shivering pale legs. They cut off her hair, and scattered it out to the wild winds, and then they began to sing a terrible song that made him cover his ears in pain --

and then -- he could not remember -- and then it was later, much later, in a greenblue land along a sweeping bay, and she was walking towards him, and every step she took was as if a sword were being thrust up through the soles of her feet. But she kept walking, and every step bled into the sand, leaving traces of her passing. And she held out her arms to him and sang:

'It's of a brave young highwayman
His story we will tell
His name was Willie Brennan
And in Eireland he did dwell...


And he came toward her, and then she opened her mouth to sing again, but he could see that they had cut her tongue out as well, and now when she spoke he could not hear words, but only strange whistles and squeaks and highpitched cries, and still she sang, her feet bloody and her head butchered of all its hair, her mouth in pain, and yet still she sang, and yet still she sang, and it became a song, and then flowing from all the waters of the dead world, all the ghosts of the dead fish and the herds of the lost great whales began to appear, and they moved towards the land to the sound of her voice, and then at last in huge teeming multitudes they flowed up onto the beach, and then the ghosts all arose as if charmed, and all the creatures of the sea began to dance to Sharazade's song, and how they laughed to see them dance, all the creatures of the sea, the shoals and swirls of them, and how, towering over all, the stately vast bulky Leviathans weaved and bowed and twirled about in starry minuets and waltzes and schottisches and jigs and reels. And -- and then darkness descended around him again ---