He was trembling in every limb, while she seemed to be devoid of any agitation whatever.
"Your father King Haffgo was angry this afternoon, because I looked at you; but," added the lover, "I could not have helped doing it, if I knew my life would have paid for the act.

Ziffak told me about you, so you see I did not feel that you were a stranger, even though I then saw you for the first time and never heard the music of your voice until now." "The king is angry," said she, withdrawing a little as the happy fellow took another step; "he says you shall be killed, but Ziffak persuaded him to say your life should be spared if you went away to-night." Ashman felt another delicious thrill as he reflected that if such were the understanding, there would seem to be no cause for the lovely Ariel to come thus far out of her way to repeat what Ziffak was sure to explain before the departure of the explorers.
Ah, it must have been because of her interest in him that she had sought this perilous stolen interview.
"Well, then," said he mournfully, "I must depart and never see you again.

Death would be preferable to _that_!" "But you may come back some time," said she in such a tremulous, hesitating voice, that he impulsively sprang forward and caught her dainty hand before she could escape him.
"O don't!" she plead like a timid bird, striving to withdraw the imprisoned fingers which he still held fast.
"Nay, but you must, if I am never to see you again," he exclaimed vehemently; "O, Ariel, I had hoped that I might stay here until I could see and talk with you and tell you that I can never, never leave you; that if I go, you must go with me; I will take you to my home which is many many long miles away, but I will be your slave; I will love you; I will make you happy; you shall never sigh for the land and the people you leave behind you----" There is no saying when the impetuous lover would have stopped his wooing in this cyclone-like fashion hut for an alarming interruption.
He had been smitten profoundly, and the urgency of the case impelled him to an ardor which could not have found expression under any other conditions; but, all the time the frightened maiden was striving to free her imprisoned hand, and the lover felt he ought to release it but could not.
Suddenly she ceased her efforts and looked beyond him with a gasp and such a startled expression, that he knew some unusual cause had produced it..