As his brain grew dull he heard the water gurgling over him.
How long he remained stunned he did not know.

He felt the water rushing about his head again; he felt that he had been drowned, and he knew, too--in that foolish way in which the half-awakened brain knows the supposed certainties of dreams--that the white hand he had essayed to hold had grasped his beard firmly under his chin, and that thus holding his head above the surface of the water, she was towing him away to unknown regions.
Then he seemed to know nothing again; and again he opened his eyes, to find himself lying on a beach in the moonlight, and the sea-maid's face was bending over his.

He saw it distinctly, all tender human solicitude written on the moonlit lineaments.

As his eyes opened more her face receded.

She was gone, and he gazed vacantly at the sky; then, realizing his consciousness more clearly, he sat up suddenly to see where she had gone.
It seemed to him that, like a kind enchantress, she had transformed herself to break his passion.