"That's a steamer," said the eel-mother; "make room!"

She had hardly spoken these words when a furious uproar arose above.
There was a tramping and stamping as if the people overhead were
intent on building a bridge between the shore and the boat in two
seconds. But it was difficult to see anything on account of the
oil and soot which were making the water thick and muddy.

There was something very heavy on the bridge now, so heavy that it
made it creak, and men's voices were shouting:

"Lift it up!--Ho, there!--Up!--Hold tight!--Up with it!--Up!--Push
it along!--Lift it up!"

Then something indescribable happened. First it sounded as if
sixty piles of wood were all being sawn at the same time; then a
cleft opened in the water which went down to the bottom of the sea,
and there, wedged between three stones, stood a black box, which
sang and played and tinkled and jingled, close to the eel-mother
and her son, who hastily disappeared in the lowest depths of the
ocean.

Then a voice up above shouted:--

"Three fathoms deep! Impossible! Leave it alone. It isn't worth
while hauling the old lumber up again; it would cost more to repair
than it's worth."

The voice belonged to the master of the mine, whose piano had fallen