"Surely a most solitary life!"

The maid hesitated. "Perhaps I should not say this, but tonight is the night of the half-moon waning, and when the weather is fine Lady Melancthe leaves the house an hour before midnight, and returns somewhat later; after moondown. Truly, I fear for her, since this is not altogether a kind coast."

"You are wise to tell me this." Shimrod gave the maid a gold crown. "This will help when you marry."

"Indeed it will, and my thanks to you! Please do not take it to heart if I say that you may not come again to the house."

"I wonder why."

"The lady evidently finds nothing in you to amuse her, and that is the truth of it."

"Most strange!" said Shimrod despondently. "I have sueceeded with ladies of every degree, from high to low. A fairy damsel at one time became my lover; the Duchess Lydia of Loermel conferred significant favors upon me. Yet here, on this barren and almost forgotten coast a maiden living alone in a villa bars me from her sight. Is it not a farce?"

"Very strange, sir!" The maid dimpled. "Were you to come knocking on my door, I would not turn you away."

"Aha! We must look into that!" Shimrod seized the maid, kissed her soundly on both cheeks, and sent her smiling away to market.

IV

SHIMROD PREPARED WITH CARE for the night's adventure. He donned a black cloak and arranged the hood so as to cover his sandy-brown hair and to shadow his face. At the last minute, almost as an afterthought, he rubbed the soles of his sandals with water-spite, that he might be enabled to walk on water. Tonight he doubted if the facility would be needed, though at other times it had served him well, except in heavy surf when the charm tended to be a nuisance.

Afterglow gave way to dark night and the waning half-moon started down the sky. At last Shimrod set off up the beach. Approaching the villa, Shimrod climbed the shore dune and settled himself where he could watch in comfort.

From within the villa yellow lamplight outlined a row of high windows. One by one the lamps were snuffed and the villa went dark.

Shimrod waited while the moon descended the sky. From the villa came a shape, conspicuous only as a blot moving across the sand. The size of the blot and the rhythm of its motion identified Melancthe. Shimrod followed at a discreet distance.

Melancthe walked purposefully, but without haste; so far as Shimrod could determine, she showed no interest in the possibility of someone following.

She walked half a mile, just above the reach of the glimmering surf, and presently arrived at a ledge of dark stone which, thrusting into the sea, created a rough little peninsula something over a hundred feet long. In bad weather, waves would break over the ledge; in the calm of the dying moon, the waves merely flowed over the low areas with intermittent sucking and gurgling sounds.

Arriving at the ledge, Melancthe paused a moment and took stock of her surroundings. Shimrod halted, crouched and pulled the hood about his face.

Melancthe took no heed of him. She climbed up on the rock and picked her way out toward the end, where a smooth wave-washed shoulder of stone created a vantage a man's height above the water. Melancthe seated herself on the stone and looked out to sea.

Crouching low, Shimrod scuttled forward like a great black rat and crawled up on the ledge. With great care, testing each step for loose footing, he moved forward. ... A sound behind him: the pad of slow steps!

Shimrod threw himself to the side and huddled into black shade under a jut of rock.

The steps shuffled close; peering up from under the hood Shimrod saw a creature half-lit by moonlight: a squat torso, massive legs, a distorted head with a low crest. The air disturbed by the creature's passage carried a reek which caused Shimrod to hold his breath, then exhale slowly.

The creature shuffled out toward the end of the ledge. Shimrod heard a muffled conversation, then silence. He raised himself to a crouching position and went cautiously forward. Melancthe's silhouette blotted out the stars to the west. Nearby huddled the creature who had come after her. Both stared out to sea.

Minutes passed. A dark shape rising from below broke the surface with a hiss and a soft coughing sound. It floated to the end of the ledge and pulled itself up to squat beside Melancthe. Again there was a conversation, which Shimrod could not overhear, then the three sat in silence.

The half-moon settled low, into a long frail wisp of cloud. The three creatures moved somewhat closer together. The sea-thing produced a soft contralto tone. Melancthe uttered a sound somewhat higher in register; the land-thing sang a vibrant deep note. The chord, if such it might be called, persisted for ten seconds, then one after the other the singers changed their tones and the chord altered, then dwindled into silence.

Shivers ran along Shimrod's skin. The sound was of a strange desolate nature, of a sort unfamiliar to Shimrod. Silence held at the end of the ledge as the three brooded upon the quality of their music. Then the land-thing produced its deep throbbing sound. Melancthe sang: "Ahhhh—ohhhhh" in a descending pitch across an octave. The sea-thing uttered a contralto tone like the chime of a far sea-bell. The sounds altered, in timbre and pitch; the chord dwindled into silence, and Shimrod, skulking low in the shadows, returned to the beach, where he felt less vulnerable to whatever magic might be latent in the sounds.

Fifteen minutes passed. The half-moon became yellow-green and sank into the sea. In the dim light the three at the end of the ledge were almost invisible... . Once again they sang their chords, and Shimrod wondered at the melancholy sweetness of the sounds and their ineffable loneliness.

Silence again. Time passed: ten minutes. The land-thing padded across the rock to the shore. Shimrod watched it mount the slope and disappear into a gully. ... He waited. Melancthe came along the ledge of rock, jumped down to the sand and set off down the beach. As she came to the spot where Shimrod sat, she halted and peered through the dark.

Shimrod rose to his feet, and Melancthe turned to go her way. Shimrod fell in step beside her. She said nothing.

Finally Shimrod asked: "For whom are you singing?"

"No one."

"Why do you go there?"

"Because I choose to do so."

"Who are those creatures?"

"Outcasts like myself."

"Do you talk? Or do other than sing?"

Melancthe laughed, a strange low laugh. "Shimrod, yoii are ruled by your brain. You are as calm as a cow."

Shimrod decided that silence gave him better credence than hot denial, and so they returned to the villa.

Without a word or a backward glance Melancthe turned through the portal, crossed the terrace and was gone.

Shimrod continued back to Ys, dissatisfied and convinced that he had conducted himself incorrectly: in what fashion, he could not say. Also, what might have been gained by proper deportment? Perhaps a seat in the choir?

Melancthe: hauntingly, strangely, beautiful!

Melancthe: singing across the sea while the waning moon sank low! Perhaps in sheer passion he should have seized her as they returned along the beach and taken her by force. At least she would not have criticized him for intellectuality!

Even in this program, so superficially attractive, definite flaws existed. Even while repugning the charges of intellectuality, Shimrod still comported himself by the precepts of gallantry, which were uncompromising in such cases. Shimrod decided to think no more of Melancthe: "She is not for me."

In the morning, the sun rose into another fine day. Shimrod sat brooding at a table in front of the Rope and Anchor. A falcon swerved down from the sky and dropped a willow twig upon the table before him, then flew away.