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Syrens whooped, steam whistles shrieked hoarsely; the raucous voices of fog-horns proclaimed the whereabouts of scores of craft, passing up and down the river; but the trim-built barge slid noiselessly along, ghost-like, in the dun-colored "smother," giving no intimation of her proximity. Then it was that Mr. Bob Topper's moment for action arrived.
She is the apple of his eye and the crown of his labours. To hear Rakope sing is to believe in the Syrens; to chat with her and receive her looks and smiles, to dance with her ah! She is the pet of the tribe. Men and women, girls and boys are never weary of admiring or caressing or spoiling her.
To speak of kinds of waters I neglect, My diverse fountains and their strange effect: My wholsome bathes, together with their cures; My water Syrens with their guilefull lures, The uncertain cause of certain ebbs and flows, Which wondring Aristotles wit n'er knows, Nor will I speak of waters made by art, Which can to life restore a fainting heart.
"'But now, what ho for a merry round of pleasure, says I. 'Here's one of Hall Caine's shows , and a stock-yard company in "Hamlet," and skating at the Hollowhorn Rink, and Sarah Bernhardt, and the Shapely Syrens Burlesque Company. I should think, now, that the Shapely "But what does this healthy, wealthy, and wise man do but reach his arms up to the second-story windows and gape noisily.
This is the road to nowhere good God, how tired I am of it." "And of those who go with you, Alb." "I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois." "You silly boy, Alb are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no people who love are never ashamed." He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work.
She stood speechless and motionless, her heart in her mouth as she watched him go furtively across that awful bridge of planks and get nearer and nearer to his prize. There were lions in his path, as there used to be in the path of knights-errant when they came near the castles of necromancers who held beautiful princesses captive to say nothing of full-blown dragons and alluring syrens.
Again, let it be remembered that this is the selfsame Celia, all tender, soft, and delicate, who with a voice, the sweetness of which the Syrens might envy, warbles the harmonious song in praise of the young adventurer; and again, the next day, or, perhaps the next hour, with fiery eyes, wrinkled brows, and foaming lips, roars forth treason and nonsense in a political argument with some fair one of a different principle.
She receives no one, and yet for miles around she is blessed for her charity. 'Tis said, however," and he dropped his voice, "that she is a Christaudin; but of this I know nothing." And so this sad, dark-robed spectre was the once brilliant and beautiful De Helly! I went back in my mind to the gay days when she reigned as queen. It was not so long ago, and I could recall all that throng of syrens.
The first charm the Syrens made use of to allure Ulysses is of this nature: "Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse, Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse." These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it: "Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?"
I escaped from these syrens without being bound to the mast, like Ulysses; but, like him, I had nearly fallen a victim to a modern Polyphemus; for though he had not one eye in the middle of his forehead, after the manner of his prototype, yet the rays from both his eyes meeting together at the tip of his long nose, gave him very much that appearance.
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