suddenly, two monstrous arms issued from the bosom of the waters and seized me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths with irresistible force.i should certainly have been lost, if i had not had time to give a cry by which erik knew me.
for it was he; and, instead of drowning me, as was certainly his first intention, he swam with me and laid me gently on the bank:
"how imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with water.
"why try to enter my house? i never invited you! i don't want you there, nor anybody! did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me?
however great the service you rendered him, erik may end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain erik, not even erik himself."he spoke, but i had now no other wish than to know what i already called the trick of the siren.he satisfied my curiosity, for erik, who is a real monster--i have seen him at work in persia, alas--is also, in certain respects, a regular child, vain and self-conceited, and there is nothing he loves so much, after astonishing people, as to prove all the really miraculous ingenuity of his mind.
he laughed and ed me a long reed.
"it's the silliest trick you ever saw," he said, "but it's very useful for breathing and singing in the water.i learned it from the tonkin pirates, who are able to remain hidden for hours in the beds of the rivers."[8]
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[8] an official report from tonkin, received in paris at the end of july, 1909, relates how the famous pirate chief de tham was tracked, together with his men, by our soldiers; and how all of them succeeded in escaping, thanks to this trick of the reeds.