Melmoth the Wanderer empty. They follow Melmoth's tracks to the top of a cliff, and see his handkerchief on a crag below them. "Exchanging looks of silent and unutterable horror", they return home. Honoré de Balzac wrote a follow-up story ("Melmoth Reconciled") and considered Maturin's novel worthy of a place among Molière's "Don Juan", Goethe's "Faust" and Lord Byron's "Manfred" as one of the supreme icons of modern European literature. Oscar Wilde, during his travels after release from prison, called himself Sebastian Melmoth, deriving this pseudonym from the title character in his great-uncle's novel and from Saint Sebastian. Historian of English literature Walter
Sebastian (The Little Mermaid) the "royal court composer", his full name being "Horatio Thelonius Ignatius Crustaceus Sebastian", and he conducts a concert that King Triton's seven daughters are supposed to perform. Ariel fails to show up for the concert, and later Sebastian joins King Triton in scolding her, blaming her for his humiliation. Sebastian is tasked by King Triton to follow Ariel and keep her out of trouble, and so witnesses Ariel saving Eric from drowning, which horrifies him as contact between the human world and merworld is forbidden. Sebastian accidentally lets this information slip to King Triton, who confronts Ariel and destroys her