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 showed 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."[1] I spoke to him severely.
"It's a trick that nearly killed me!" I said.