And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner.And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner.
And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner.And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner.
And that vessel, he knew, was the pirate schooner.
"Why, where should he go? What should he do but come back?" asked Madame Erlingsen.
"He is now gone over the ridge to the north. I saw him moor the boat, and begin to climb; and I watched his dark figure on the white snow, higher and higher, till it was a speck, and I could not make it out."
"What do you think of this story, Peder?" asked his mistress.
"I think Hund has taken the short cut over the promontory, on business of his own at the islands. He is not on any business of yours, depend upon it, madame."
"And what business can he have among the islands?"
"I could say that with more certainty if I knew exactly where the pirate vessel is."
"That is your idea, Erica," said her mistress. "I saw what your thoughts were an hour ago, before we knew all this."
"I was thinking then, madame, that if Hund was gone to join the pirates, Nipen would be very ready to give them a wind just now. A baffling wind would be our only defence; and we cannot expect that much from Nipen to-day."
"I will do anything in the world," cried Oddo eagerly. "Send me anywhere. Do think of something that I can do."
"What must be done, Peder?" asked his mistress.
"There is quite enough to fear, Erica, without a word of Nipen. Pirates on the coast, and one farmhouse seen burning already."
"I will tell you what you must let me do, madame," said Erica. "Indeed you must not oppose me. My mind is quite set upon going for the boat—immediately—this very minute. That will give us time, it will give us safety for this night. Hund might bring seven or eight men upon us over the promontory; but if they find no boat, I think they can hardly work up the windings of the fiord in their own vessel to-night; unless, indeed," she added with a sigh, "they have a most favourable wind."
"All this is true enough," said her mistress; "but how will you go? Will you swim?"
"The raft, madame."
"And there is the old skiff on Thor islet," said Oddo. "It is a rickety little thing, hardly big enough for two; but it will carry down Erica and me, if we go before the tide turns."
"But how will you get to Thor islet?" inquired Madame Erlingsen. "I wish the scheme were not such a wild one."
"A wild one must serve at such a time, madame," replied Erica. "Rolf had lashed several logs before he went. I am sure we can get over to the islet. See, madame, the fiord is as smooth as a pond."
"Let her go," said Peder. "She will never repent."
"Then come back, I charge you, if you find the least danger," said her mistress. "No one is safer at the oar than you; but if there is a ripple in the water, or a gust on the heights, or a cloud in the sky, come back. Such is my command, Erica."
"Wife," said Peder, "give her your pelisse. That will save her seeing the girls before she goes. And she shall have my cap, and then there is not an eye along that fiord that can tell whether she is man or woman."
Ulla lent her deer-skin pelisse willingly enough; but she entreated that Oddo might be kept at home. She folded her arms about the boy with tears; but Peder decided the matter with the words—
"Let him go. It is the least he can do to make up for last night. Equip, Oddo."
Oddo equipped willingly enough. In two minutes he and his companion looked like two walking bundles of fur. Oddo carried a frail basket, containing rye-bread, salt fish, and a flask of corn-brandy; for in Norway no one goes on the shortest expedition without carrying provisions.
"Surely it must be dusk by this time," said Peder.
It was dusk; and this was well, as the pair could steal down to the shore without being perceived from the house. Madame Erlingsen gave them her blessing, saying that if the enterprise saved them from nothing worse than Hund's company this night, it would be a great good. There could be no more comfort in having Hund for an inmate; for some improper secret he certainly had. Her hope was that, finding the boat gone, he would never show himself again.
Erica now profited by her lover's industry in the morning. He had so far advanced with the raft that, though no one would have thought of taking it in its present state to the mouth of the fiord for shipment, it would serve as a conveyance in still water for a short distance safely enough.
And still indeed the waters were. As Erica and Oddo were busily and silently employed in tying moss round their oars to muffle their sound, the ripple of the tide upon the white sand could scarcely be heard; and it appeared to the eye as if the lingering remains of the daylight brooded on the fiord, unwilling to depart. The stars had, however, been showing themselves for some time; and they might now be seen twinkling below almost as clearly and steadily as overhead. As Erica and Oddo put their little raft off from the shore, and then waited with their oars suspended, to observe whether the tide carried them towards the islet they must reach, it seemed as if some invisible hand was pushing them forth, to shiver the bright pavement of constellations as it lay. Star after star was shivered, and its bright fragments danced in their wake; and those fragments reunited and became a star again, as the waters closed over the path of the raft, and subsided into perfect stillness.
The tide favoured Erica's object. A few strokes of the oar brought the raft to the right point for landing on the islet. They stepped ashore, and towed the raft along till they came to the skiff, and then they fastened the raft with the boat-hook, which had been fixed there for the skiff. This done, Oddo ran to turn over the little boat and examine its condition, but he found he could not move it. It was frozen fast to the ground. It was scarcely possible to get a firm hold of it, it was so slippery with ice; and all pulling and pushing of the two together was in vain, though the boat was so light that either of them could have lifted and carried it in a time of thaw.
This circumstance caused a great deal of delay; and what was worse, it obliged them to make some noise. They struck at the ice with sharp stones, but it was long before they could make any visible impression, and Erica proposed again and again that they should proceed on the raft. Oddo was unwilling. The skiff would go so incomparably faster, that it was worth spending some time upon it; and the fears he had had of its leaking were removed, now that he found what a sheet of ice it was covered with—ice which would not melt to admit a drop of water while they were in it. So he knocked and knocked away, wishing that the echoes would be quiet for once, and then laughing as he imagined the ghost stories that would spring up all round the fiord to-morrow, from the noise he was then making.
Erica worked hard too; and one advantage of their labour was that they were well warmed before they put off again. The boat's icy fastenings were all broken at last, and it was launched; but all was not yet ready. The skiff had lain in a direction east and west; and its north side had so much thicker a coating of ice than the other, that its balance was destroyed. It hung so low on one side as to promise to upset with a touch.
"We must clear off more of the ice," said Erica. "But how late it is growing!"
"No more knocking, I say," replied Oddo. "There is a quieter way of trimming the boat."
He fastened a few stones to the gunwale on the lighter side, and took in a few more for the purpose of shifting the weight if necessary, while they were on their way.
They did not leave quiet behind them when they departed. They had roused the multitude of eider ducks and other sea-fowl which thronged the islet, and which now, being roused, began their night-feeding and flying, though at an earlier hour than usual. When their discordant cries were left so far behind as to be softened by distance, the flapping of wings and swash of water, as the fowl plunged in, still made the air busy all around.
The rowers were so occupied with the management of their dangerous craft, that they had not spoken since they left the islet. The skiff would have been unmanageable by any maiden and boy in our country; but on the coast of Norway, it is as natural to persons of all ages and degrees to guide a boat as to walk. Swiftly but cautiously they shot through the water.
"Are you sure you know the cove?" asked Erica.
"Quite sure. I wish I was as sure that Hund would not find it again before me. Pull away."
"How much farther is it?"
"Farther than I like to think of. I doubt your arm holding out; I wish Rolf was here."
Erica did not wish the same thing. She thought that Rolf was, on the whole, safer waging war with bears than with pirates, especially if Hund was among them. She pulled her oar cheerfully, observing that there was no fatigue at present; and that when they were once afloat in the heavier boat, and had cleared the cove, there need be no hurry—unless indeed they should see something of the pirate schooner on the way; and of this she had no expectation, as the booty that might be had where the fishery was beginning was worth more than anything that could be found higher up the fiords, to say nothing of the danger of running up into the country so far as that getting away again depended upon one particular wind.
Yet Erica looked behind her after every few strokes of her oar; and once, when she saw something, her start was felt like a start of the skiff itself. There was a fire glancing and gleaming and quivering over the water, some way down the fiord.
"Some people night-fishing," observed Oddo. "What sport they will have! I wish I was with them. How fast we go! How you can row when you choose! I can see the man that is holding the torch. Cannot you see his black figure? And the spearman—see how he stands at the bow—now going to cast his spear! I wish I was there."
"We must get farther away—into the shadow somewhere, or wait," observed Erica. "I had rather not wait, it is growing so late. We might creep along under that promontory, in the shadow, if you would be quiet. I wonder whether you can be silent in the sight of night-fishing."
"To be sure," said Oddo, disposed to be angry, and only kept from it by the thought of last night. He helped to bring the skiff into the shadow of the overhanging rocks, and only spoke once more, to whisper that the fishing-boat was drifting down with the tide, and that he thought their cove lay between them and the fishing-party.
It was so. As the skiff rounded the point of the promontory, Oddo pointed out what appeared like a mere dark chasm in the high perpendicular wall of rock that bounded the waters. This chasm still looked so narrow on approaching it, that Erica hesitated to push her skiff into it, till certain that there was no one there. Oddo was so clear that she might safely do this, so noiseless was their rowing, and it was so plain that there was no footing on the rocks by which he might enter to explore, that in a sort of desperation, and seeing nothing else to be done, Erica agreed. She wished it had been summer, when either of them might have learned what they wanted by swimming. This was now out of the question; and stealthily therefore she pulled her little craft into the deepest shadow, and crept into the cove.
At a little distance from the entrance it widened, but it was a wonder to Erica that even Oddo's eyes should have seen Hund moor his boat here from the other side of the fiord; though the fiord was not more than a gunshot over in this part. Oddo himself wondered, till he recalled how the sun was shining down into the chasm at the time. By starlight, the outline of all that the cove contained might be seen, the outline of the boat among other things. There she lay! But there was something about her which was unpleasant enough. There were three men in her.
What was to be done now? Here was the very worst danger that Erica had feared—worse than finding the boat gone—worse than meeting it in the wide fiord. What was to be done?
There was nothing for it but to do nothing—to lie perfectly still in the shadow, ready, however, to push out on the first movement of the boat to leave the cove; for, though the canoe might remain unnoticed at present, it was impossible that anybody could pass out of the cove without seeing her. In such a case there would be nothing for it but a race—a race for which Erica and Oddo held themselves prepared without any mutual explanation, for they dared not speak. The faintest whisper would have crept over the smooth water to the ears in the larger boat.
One thing was certain—that something must happen presently. It is impossible for the hardiest men to sit inactive in a boat for any length of time in a January night in Norway. In the calmest nights the cold is only to be sustained by means of the glow from strong exercise. It was certain that these three men could not have been long in their places, and that they would not sit many moments more without some change in their arrangements.
They did not seem to be talking, for Oddo, who was the best listener in the world, could not discover that a sound issued from their boat. He fancied they were drowsy, and, being aware what were the consequences of yielding to drowsiness in severe cold, the boy began to entertain high hopes of taking these three men prisoners. The whole country would ring with such a feat performed by Erica and himself.
The men were too much awake to be made prisoners of at present. One was seen to drink from a flask, and the hoarse voice of another was heard grumbling, as far as the listeners could make out, at being kept waiting. The third then rose to look about him, and Erica trembled from head to foot. He only looked upon the land, however, declared he saw nothing of those he was expecting, and began to warm himself as he stood, by repeatedly clapping his arms across his breast. This was Hund. He could not have been known by his figure, for all persons look alike in wolf-skin pelisses, but the voice and the action were his. Oddo saw how Erica shuddered. He put his finger on his lips, but Erica needed no reminding of the necessity of quietness.
The other two men then rose, and after a consultation, the words of which could not be heard, all stepped ashore, one after another, and climbed a rocky pathway.
"Now, now!" whispered Erica. "Now we can get away."
"Not without the boat," said Oddo. "You would not leave them the boat?"
"No—not if—but they will be back in a moment. They are only gone to hasten their companions."
"I know it," said Oddo. "Now two strokes forward!"
While she gave these two strokes, which brought the skiff to the stern of the boat, Erica saw that Oddo had taken out a knife which gleamed in the starlight. It was for cutting the thong by which the boat was fastened to a birch-pole, the other end of which was hooked on shore. This was to save his going ashore to unhook the pole. It was well for him that boat chains were not in use, owing to the scarcity of metal in that region. The clink of a chain would certainly have been heard.
Quickly and silently he entered the boat and tied the skiff to its stern, and he and Erica took their places where the men had sat one minute before. They used their own muffled oars to turn the boat round, till Oddo observed that the boat oars were muffled too. Then voices were heard again. The men were returning. Strongly did the two companions draw their strokes till a good breadth of water lay between them and the shore, and then till they had again entered the deep shadow which shrouded the mouth of the cove. There they paused.
"In with you!" some loud voice said, as man after man was seen in outline coming down the pathway. "In with you! We have lost time enough already."
"Where is she? I can't see the boat," answered the foremost man.
"You can't miss her," said one behind, "unless the brandy has got into your eyes."
"So I should have said; but I do miss her."
Oddo shook with stifled laughter as he partly saw and partly overheard the perplexity of these men. At last one gave a deep groan, and another declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep at the bottom of the creek, drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-sprite. Oddo squeezed Erica's little hand as he heard this. If it had been light enough, he would have seen that even she was smiling.
One of the men mourned their having no other boat, so that they must give up their plan. Another said that if they had a dozen boats he would not set foot in one after what had happened. He should go straight back, the way he came, to their own vessel. Another said he would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord for some chance of seeing the boat. This he persisted in, though told by the rest that it was absurd to suppose that the boat had loosed itself and gone out into the fiord in the course of the two minutes that they had been absent. He showed the fragment of the cut thong in proof of the boat not having loosed itself, and set off for a point on the heights which he said overlooked the fiord. One or two went with him, the rest returning up the narrow pathway at some speed—such speed that Erica thought they were afraid of the hindmost being caught by the same enemy that had taken their boat. Oddo observed this too, and he quickened their pace by setting up very loud the mournful cry with which he was accustomed to call out to the plovers on the mountain-side on sporting days. No sound can be more melancholy; and now, as it rang from the rocks, it was so unsuitable to the place, and so terrible to the already frightened men, that they ran on as fast as the slipperiness of the rocks would allow, till they were all out of sight over the ridge.
"Now for it, before the other two come out above us there!" said Oddo, and in another minute they were again in the fiord, keeping as much in the shadow as they could, however, till they must strike over to the islet.
"Thank God that we came!" exclaimed Erica. "We shall never forget what we owe you, Oddo. You shall see, by the care we take of your grandfather and Ulla, that we do not forget what you have done this night. If Nipen will only forgive, for the sake of this——"
"We were just in the nick of time," observed Oddo. "It was better than if we had been earlier."
"I do not know," said Erica. "Here are their brandy-bottles, and many things besides. I had rather not have had to bring these away."
"But if we had been earlier they would not have had their fright. That is the best part of it. Depend upon it, some that have not said their prayers for long will say them to-night."
"That will be good. But I do not like carrying home these things that are not ours. If they are seen at Erlingsen's they may bring the pirates down upon us. I would leave them on the islet but that the skiff has to be left there too, and that would explain our trick."
Erica would not consent to throw the property overboard. This would be robbing those who had not actually injured her, whatever their intentions might have been. She thought that if the goods were left upon some barren, uninhabited part of the shore, the pirates would probably be the first to find them; and that, if not, the rumour of such an extraordinary fact, spread by the simple country people, would be sure to reach them. So Oddo carried on shore, at the first stretch of white beach they came to, the brandy-flasks, the bear-skins, the tobacco-pouch, the muskets and powder-horns, and the tinder-box. He scattered these about, just above high-water mark, laughing to think how report would tell of the sprites' care in placing all these articles out of reach of injury from the water.
Oddo did not want for light while doing this. When he returned, he found Erica gazing up over the towering precipices at the Northern Lights, which had now unfurled their broad yellow blaze. She was glad that they had not appeared sooner to spoil the adventure of the night, but she was thankful to have the way home thus illumined now that the business was done. She answered with so much alacrity to Oddo's question whether she was not very weary, that he ventured to say two things which had before been upon his tongue without his having the courage to utter them.
"You will not be so afraid of Nipen any more," observed he, glancing at her face, of which he could see every feature by the quivering light. "You see how well everything has turned out."
"Oh, hush! It is too soon yet to speak so. It is never right to speak so. Pray do not speak any more, Oddo."
"Well, not about that. But what was it exactly that you thought Hund would do with this boat and those people? Did you think," he continued, after a short pause, "that they would come up to Erlingsen's to rob the place?"
"Not for the object of robbing the place, because there is very little that is worth their taking; far less than at the fishing-grounds. Not but they might have robbed us, if they took a fancy to anything we have. No; I thought, and I still think, that they would have carried off Rolf, led on by Hund——"
"Oh, ho! carried off Rolf! So here is the secret of your wonderful courage to-night, you who durst not look round at your own shadow last night! This is the secret of your not being tired, you who are out of breath with rowing a mile sometimes!"
"That is in summer," pleaded Erica. "However, you have my secret, as you say, a thing which is no secret at home. We all think that Hund bears such a grudge against Rolf, for having got the houseman's place——"
"And for nothing else?"
"That," continued Erica, "he would be glad to—to——"
"To get rid of Rolf, and be a houseman, and get betrothed instead of him. Well; Hund is baulked for this time. Rolf must look to himself after to-day."
Erica sighed deeply. She did not believe that Rolf would attend to his own safety; and the future looked very dark, all shrouded by her fears.
By the time the skiff was deposited where it had been found, both the rowers were so weary that they gave up the idea of taking the raft in tow, as for full security they ought to do. They doubted whether they could get home, if they had more weight to draw than their own boat. It was well that they left this encumbrance behind, for there was quite peril and difficulty enough without it; and Erica's strength and spirits failed the more the farther the enemy was left behind.
A breath of wind seemed to bring a sudden darkening of the friendly lights which had blazed up higher and brighter, from their first appearance till now. Both rowers looked down the fiord, and uttered an exclamation at the same moment.
"See the fog!" cried Oddo, putting fresh strength into his oar.
"O Nippen! Nipen!" mournfully exclaimed Erica. "Here it is, Oddo, the west wind!"
The west wind is, in winter, the great foe of the fishermen of the fiords; it brings in the fog from the sea, and the fogs of the Arctic Circle are no trifling enemy. If Nipen really had the charge of the winds, he could not more emphatically show his displeasure towards any unhappy boatman than by overtaking him with the west wind and fog.
"The wind must have just changed," said Oddo, pulling exhausting strokes, as the fog marched towards them over the water, like a solid and immeasurably lofty wall. "The wind must have gone right round in a minute."
"To be sure, since you said what you did of Nipen," replied Erica bitterly.
Oddo made no answer; but he did what he could. Erica had to tell him not to wear himself out too quickly, as there was no saying now how long they should be on the water.
How long they had been on the water, how far they had deviated from their right course, they could not at all tell, when, at last more by accident than skill, they touched the shore near home, and heard friendly voices, and saw the light of torches-through the thick air. The fog had wrapped them round so that they could not even see the water, or each other. They had rowed mechanically, sometimes touching the rock, sometimes grazing upon the sand, but never knowing where they were till the ringing of a bell, which they recognised as the farm bell, roused hope in their hearts, and strengthened them to throw off the fatal drowsiness caused by cold and fatigue. They made towards the bell; and then heard Peder's shouts, and next saw the dull light of two torches which looked as if they could not burn in the fog. The old man lent a strong hand to pull up the boat upon the beach, and to lift out the benumbed rowers; and they were presently revived by having their limbs chafed, and by a strong dose of the universal medicine—corn-brandy and camphor—which, in Norway, neither man nor woman, young nor old, sick nor well, thinks of refusing upon occasion.
When Erica was in bed, warm beneath an eider-down coverlid, her mistress bent over her and whispered—
"You saw and heard Hund himself?"
"Hund himself, madame."
"What shall we do if he comes back before my husband is home from the bear-hunt?"
"If he comes, it will be in fear and penitence, thinking that all the powers are against him. But oh, madame, let him never know how it really was!"
"Leave that to me, and go to sleep now, Erica. You ought to rest well; for there is no saying what you and Oddo have saved us from. I could not have asked such a service. My husband and I must see how we can reward it." And her kind and grateful mistress kissed Erica's cheek, though Erica tried to explain that she was thinking most of some one else, when she undertook this expedition.
Great was Stiorna's consternation at Hund's non-appearance the next day, seeing us she did with her own eyes that the boat was safe in its proper place. She saw that no one wished him back. He was rarely spoken of, and then it was with dislike or fear; and when she wept over the idea of his being drowned, or carried off by hostile spirits, the only comfort offered her was that she need not fear his being dead, or that he could not come back if he chose. She was indeed obliged to suppose, at last, that it was his choice to keep away; for amidst the flying rumours that amused the inhabitants of the district for the rest of the winter—rumours of the movements of the pirate vessel, and of the pranks of the spirits of the region—there were some such clear notices of the appearance of Hund, so many eyes had seen him in one place or another, by land and water, by day and night, that Stiorna could not doubt of his being alive, and free to come home or stay away as he pleased. She could not conceal from herself that he had probably joined the pirates.
Erlingsen and Rolf came home sooner than might reasonably have been expected, and well laden with bears' flesh. The whole family of bears had been found and shot.
He sometimes hammered at his skiff.He sometimes hammered at his skiff.
He sometimes hammered at his skiff.He sometimes hammered at his skiff.
He sometimes hammered at his skiff.
Erlingsen kept a keen and constant look-out upon the fiord. His wife's account of the adventures of the day of his absence made him anxious; and he never went a mile out of sight of home, so vivid in his imagination was the vision of his house burning, and his family at the mercy of pirates.
So came on and passed away the spring of this year at Erlingsen's farm. It soon passed, for spring in Nordland lasts only a month. About the bridges which spanned the falls were little groups of the peasants gathered, mending such as had burst with the floods, or strengthening such as did not seem secure enough for the passage of the herds to the mountain.
During the one busy month of spring, a slight shade of sadness was thrown over the household within by the decline of old Ulla. It was hardly sadness, it was little more than gravity; for Ulla herself was glad to go. Peder knew that he should soon follow, and every one else was reconciled to one who had suffered so long going to her rest.
One day Rolf led Erica to the grave when they knew that no one was there.
"Now," he said, "you know what she who lies there would like us to be settling. She herself said her burial-day would soon be over, and then would come our wedding-day."
"When everything is ready," replied Erica, "we will fix; but not now. There is much to be done—there are many uncertainties."
"What uncertainties? It is often an uncertainty to me, Erica, after all that has happened, whether you mean to marry me at all. There are so many doubts, and so many considerations, and so many fears!"
Erica quietly observed that they had enemies—one deadly enemy not very far off, if nothing were to be said of any but human foes. Rolf declared that he had rather have Hund for a declared enemy than for a companion. Erica understood this very well, but she could not forget that Hund wanted to be houseman in Rolf's stead, and that he desired to prevent their marriage.
"That is the very reason," said Rolf, "why we should marry as soon as we can. Why not fix the day, and engage the pastor while he is here?"
"Because it would hurt Peder's feelings. There will be no difficulty in sending for the pastor when everything is ready. But now, Rolf, that all may go well, do promise not to run into needless danger."
"According to you," said Rolf, smiling, "one can never get out of danger. Where is the use of taking care, if all the powers of earth and air are against us?"
"I am not speaking of Nipen now—(not because I do not think of it)—I am speaking of Hund. Do promise me not to go more than four miles down the fiord. After that, there is a long stretch of precipices, without a single dwelling. There is not a boat that could put off, there is not an eye or an ear that could bear witness what had become of you if you and Hund should meet there."
"I will promise you not to go farther down, while alone, than Vogel islet, unless it is quite certain that Hund and the pirates are far enough off in another direction. I partly think as you do, and as Erlingsen does, that they meant to come for me the night you carried off their boat; so I will be on the watch, and go no farther than where they cannot hurt me."
"Then why say Vogel islet? It is out of all reasonable distance."
"Not to those who know the fiord as I do. I have my reasons, Erica, for fixing that distance and no other; and that far I intend to go, whether my friends think me able to take care of myself or not."
"At least," pleaded Erica, "let me go with you."
"Not for the world, my love." And Erica saw, by his look of horror at the idea of her going, that he felt anything but secure from the pirates. He took her hand, and kissed it again and again, as he said that there was plenty for that little hand to do at home, instead of pulling the oar in the hot sun. "I shall think of you all while I am fishing," he went on. "I shall fancy you making ready for the seater.[2] How happy we shall be, Erica, when we once get to the seater!"
[2] The mountain pasture belonging to a farm is called its seater.
Erica sighed, and pressed her lover's hand as he held hers.
Who was ever happier than Rolf, when abroad in his skiff, on one of the most glorious days of the year! He found his angling tolerably successful near home; but the farther he went the more the herrings abounded, and he therefore dropped down the fiord with the tide, fishing as he receded, till all home objects had disappeared. When he came to the narrow part of the fiord, near the creek which had been the scene of Erica's exploit, Rolf laid aside his rod, with the bright hook that herrings so much admire, to guide his canoe through the currents caused by the approach of the rocks and contraction of the passage; and he then wished he had brought Erica with him, so lovely was the scene. Here and there a clump of dark pines overhung some busy cataract, which, itself overshadowed, sent forth its little clouds of spray, dancing and glittering in the sunlight. A pair of fishing eagles were perched on a high ledge of rock, screaming to the echoes. On went Rolf, beyond the bounds of prudence, as many have done before him. He soon found himself in a still and somewhat dreary region, where there was no motion but of the sea-birds, and of the air which appeared to quiver before the eye, from the evaporation caused by the heat of the sun. Leisurely and softly did Rolf cast his net; and then steadily did he draw it in, so rich in fish, that when they lay in the bottom of the boat, they at once sank it deeper in the water, and checked its speed by their weight.
Rolf then rested awhile. There lay Vogel islet looming in the heated atmosphere. He was roused at length by a shout, and looked towards the point from which it came; and there, in a little harbour of the fiord, a recess which now actually lay behind him—between him and home—lay a vessel; and that vessel he knew, by a second glance, was the pirate-schooner.
Of the schooner itself he had no fear, for there was so little wind that it could not have come out in time to annoy him; but there was the schooner's boat, with five men in it—four rowing and one steering—already in full pursuit of him. He knew, by the general air and native dress of the man at the helm, that it was Hund; and he fancied he heard Hund's malicious voice in the shout which came rushing over the water from their boat to his. How fast they seemed to be coming! How the spray from their oars glittered in the sun; and how their wake lengthened with every stroke! No spectator from the shore (if there had been any) could have doubted that the boat was in pursuit of the skiff, and would snap it up presently. Rolf saw that he had five determined foes, gaining upon him every instant; and yet he was not alarmed. He had had his reasons for thinking himself safe near Vogel islet; and, calculating for a moment the time of the tide, he was quite at his ease. As he took his oars he smiled at the hot haste of his pursuers, and at the thought of the amazement they would feel when he slipped through their fingers; and then he began to row.
Rolf did not over-heat himself with too much exertion. He permitted his foes to gain a little upon him.
When very near the islet, however, he became more active, and his skiff disappeared behind its southern point while the enemy's boat was still two furlongs off. The steersman looked for the reappearance of the canoe beyond the islet; but he looked in vain. He thought, and his companions agreed with him, that it was foolish of Rolf to land upon the islet, where they could lay hands on him in a moment; but they could only suppose he had done this, and prepared to do the same. They rowed quite round the islet; but, to their amazement, they could not only perceive no place to land at, but there was no trace of the canoe. It seemed to them as if those calm and clear waters had swallowed up the skiff and Rolf, in a few minutes after they had lost sight of him. Hund thought the case was accounted for, when he recalled Nipen's displeasure.
The rowers wondered, questioned, uttered shouts, spoke all together, and then looked at Hund in silence, struck by his countenance; and finished by rowing two or three times round the islet, slowly, and looking up its bare rocky sides, which rose like walls from the water; but nothing could they see or hear. When tired of their fruitless search they returned to the schooner, ready to report to the master that the fiord was enchanted.
Meantime, Rolf had heard every splash of their oars, and every tone of their voices, as they rowed round his place of refuge. He was not on the islet, but in it. This was such an island as Swein, the sea-king of former days, took refuge in; and Rolf was only following his example. Long before, he had discovered a curious cleft in the rock, very narrow, and all but invisible at high water, even if a bush of dwarf ash and birch had not hung down over it. At high water, nothing larger than a bird could go in and out beneath the low arch; but there was a cavern within, whose sandy floor sloped up to some distance above high-water mark. In this cavern was Rolf. He had thrust his little skiff between the walls of rock, crushing in its sides as he did so. The bushes drooped behind him, hanging naturally over the entrance as before. Rolf pulled up his broken vessel upon the little sandy beach within the cave; saved a pile of his fish, and returned a good many to the water; and then sat down upon the sea-weeds to listen. There was no light but a little which found its way through the bushy screen, and up from the green water; and the sounds—the tones of the pirates' voices, and the splash of the waters against the rocky walls of his singular prison—came deadened and changed to his ear. Yet he heard enough to be aware how long his enemies remained, and when they were really gone.
It was a prison indeed, as Rolf reflected when he looked upon his broken skiff. He could not imagine how he was to get away; for his friends would certainly never think of coming to look for him here; but he put off the consideration of this point for the present, and turned away from the image of Erica's distress when he should fail to return. He amused himself now with imagining Hund's disappointment, and the reports which would arise from it; and he found this so very entertaining that he laughed aloud; and then the echo of his laughter sounded so very merry that it set him laughing again. This, in its turn, seemed to rouse the eider-ducks that thronged the island and their clatter and commotion was so great overhead, that any spectator might have been excused for believing that Vogel islet was indeed bewitched.
Rolf turned his boat about and about, and shook his head over every bruise, hole, or crack that he found, till he finished with a nod of decision that nothing could be done with it. He was a good swimmer; but the nearest point of the shore was so far off that it would be all he could do to reach it when the waters were in their most favourable state. At present, they were so chilled with the melted snows that were pouring down from every steep along the fiord, that he doubted the safety of attempting to swim at all. What chance of release had he then?
If he could by any means climb upon the rocks, in whose recesses he was now hidden, he might possibly fall in with some fishing-boat which would fetch him off; but, besides that the pirates were more likely to see him than anybody else, he believed there was no way by which he could climb upon the islet. It had always been considered the exclusive property of the aquatic birds with which it swarmed, because its sides rose so abruptly from the water, so like the smooth stone walls of a lofty building that there was no hold for foot or hand, and the summit seemed unattainable by anything that had not wings. Rolf remembered, however, having heard Peder say that when he was young, there might be seen hanging down one part of the precipice the remains of a birchen ladder, which must have been made and placed there by human hands. Rolf determined that he would try the point. He would wait till the tide was flowing in, as the waters from the open sea were somewhat less chilled than when returning from the head of the fiord:—he would take the waters at their warmest, and try and try again to make a footing upon the islet.
His cave was really a very pretty place. The golden light which blesses the high and low places of the earth did not disdain to cheer and adorn even this humble chamber, which the waters had patiently scooped out of the hard rock. As the sun drew to its setting, near the middle of the Nordland summer night, it levelled its golden rays through the cleft, and made the place far more brilliant than at noon. The beach suddenly appeared of a more dazzling white, and the waters of a deeper green, while, by their motion, they cast quivering circles of reflected light upon the roof, which had before been invisible. Rolf had supposed, from the pleasant freshness of the air, that the cave was lofty; and he now saw that the roof did indeed spring up to a vast height. He saw also that there was a great deal of driftwood accumulated; and some of it thrown into such distant corners as to prove that the waves could dash up to a much higher water-line, in stormy weather, than he had supposed. No matter! He hoped to be gone before there were any more storms. Tired and sleepy as he was, so near midnight, he made an exertion, while there was plenty of light, to clear away the sea-weeds from a space on the sand where he must to-morrow make his fire and broil his fish. The smell of the smallest quantity of burnt weed would be intolerable in so confined a place; so he cleared away every sprout of it, and laid some of the drift-wood on a spot above high-water mark, picking out the driest pieces of firewood he could find for kindling a flame.
When this was done, he made haste to heap up a bed of fine dry sand in a corner; and here he lay down as the twilight darkened. For this one night he could rest without any very painful thoughts of poor Erica; for she was prepared for his remaining out till the middle of the next day, at least.
When he awoke in the morning, the scene was marvellously changed. His cave was so dim that he could scarcely distinguish its white floor from its rocky sides. The water was low, and the cleft therefore enlarged; so that he saw at once that now was the time for making his fire—now when there was the freest access for the air. Yet he could not help pausing to admire what he saw. He could see now a long strip of the fiord—a perspective of waters and of shores, ending in a lofty peak still capped with snow, and glittering in the sunlight. He began to sing, while rubbing together, with all his might, the dry sticks of fir with which his fire was to be kindled. First they smoked, and then, by a skilful breath of air, they blazed, and set fire to the heap; and by the time the herrings were ready for broiling, the cave was so filled with smoke that Rolf's singing was turned to coughing.
Some of the smoke hung in soot on the roof and walls of the cave, curling up so well at first that Rolf almost thought there must be some opening in the lofty roof which served as a chimney. But there was not; and some of the smoke came down again, issuing at last from the mouth of the cave. Rolf observed this; and, seeing the danger of his place of retreat being thus discovered, he made haste to finish his cookery, resolving that, if he had to remain here for any length of time, he would always make his fire in the night. He presently threw water over his burning brands, and hoped that nothing had been seen of the process of preparing his breakfast.
The smoke had been seen, however, and by several people; but in such a way as to lead to no discovery of the cave. From the schooner, Hund kept his eyes fixed on the islet, at every moment he had to spare. Either he was the murderer of his fellow-servant, or the islet was bewitched; and if Rolf was under the protection and favour of the powers of the region, he, Hund, was out of favour, and might expect bad consequences. Whichever might be the case, Hund was very uneasy; and he could think of nothing but the islet, and look no other way. His companions had at first joked him about his luck in getting rid of his enemies; but, being themselves superstitious, they caught the infection of his gravity, and watched the spot almost as carefully as he.
As their vessel lay higher up in the fiord than the islet, they were on the opposite side from the crevice, and could not see from whence the smoke issued. But they saw it in the form of a light cloud hanging over the place. Hund's eyes were fixed upon it, when one of his comrades touched him on the shoulder. Hund started.
"You see there," said the man, pointing.
"To be sure I do. What else was I looking at?"
"Well, what is it?" inquired the man. "Has your friend got a visitor—come a great way this morning? They say the mountain-sprite travels in mist. If so, it is now going. See, there it sails off—melts away. It is as like common smoke as anything that ever I saw. What say you to taking the boat, and trying again whether there is no place where your friend might not land, and be now making a fire among the birds' nests?"
"Nonsense!" cried Hund. "What became of the skiff, then?"
"True," said the man; and, shaking his head, he passed on, and spoke to the master.
In his own secret mind, the master of the schooner did not quite like his present situation. After hearing the words dropped by his crew, he did not relish being stationed between the bewitched islet and the head of the fiord, where all the residents were, of course, enemies. As there was now a light wind, enough to take his vessel down, he gave orders accordingly.
Slowly, and at some distance, the schooner passed the islet, and all on board crowded together to see what they could see. None saw anything remarkable; but all heard something. There was a faint muffled sound of knocks—blows such as were never heard in a mere haunt of sea-birds. It was evident that the birds were disturbed by it. They rose and fell, made short flights and came back again, fluttered, and sometimes screamed. But if they were quiet for a minute, the knock, knock, was heard again, with great regularity, and every knock went to Hund's heart.
The fact was that, after breakfast, Rolf soon became tired of having nothing to do. The water was so very cold that he deferred till noon the attempt to swim round the islet. He thought he had better try to mend his little craft than do nothing. After collecting from the wood in the cave all the nails that happened to be sticking in it, and all the pieces that were sound enough to patch a boat with, he made a stone serve him for a hammer, straightened his nails upon another stone, and tried to fasten on a piece of wood over a hole. It was discouraging work enough; but it helped to pass the hours till the restless waters reached their highest mark in the cave, when he knew that it was noon, and time for his little expedition.
It was too cold by far for safe swimming. All the snows of Sulitelma could hardly have made the waters more chilly to the swimmer than they felt at the first plunge. But Rolf would not retreat for this reason. He thought of the sunshine outside, and of the free open view he should enjoy, dived beneath the almost closed entrance, and came up on the other side. The first thing he saw was the schooner, now lying below his island, and the next thing was a small boat between him and it, evidently making towards him. When convinced that Hund was one of the three men in it, he saw that he must go back, or make haste to finish his expedition. He made haste, swam round so close as to touch the warm rock in many places, and could not discover, any more than before, any trace of a footing by which a man might climb to the summit. There was a crevice or two, however, from which vegetation hung, still left unsearched. He could not search them now, for he must make haste home.
The boat was indeed so near when he had reached the point he set out from, that he used every effort to conceal himself; and it seemed that he could only have escaped by the eyes of his enemies being fixed on the summit of the rock. When once more in the cave he rather enjoyed hearing them come nearer and nearer, so that the bushes which hung down between him and them shook with the wind of their oars, and dipped into the waves. He laughed silently when he heard one of them swear that he would not leave the spot till he had seen something, upon which another rebuked his presumption. Presently a voice, which he knew to be Hund's, called upon his name, at first gently, and then more and more loudly, as if taking courage at not being answered.
"I will wait till he rounds the point," thought Rolf, "and then give him such an answer as may send a guilty man away quicker than he came."
He waited till they were on the opposite side, so that his voice might appear to come from the summit of the islet, and then began with the melancholy sound used to lure the plover on the moors. The men in the boat instantly observed that this was the same sound used when Erlingsen's boat was spirited away from them. It was rather singular that Rolf and Oddo should have used the same sound; but they probably chose it as the most mournful they knew. Rolf moaned louder and louder, till the sound resembled the bellowing of a tormented spirit enclosed in the rock; and the consequence was, as he had said, that his enemies retreated faster than they came.
For the next few days Rolf kept a close watch upon the proceedings of the pirates, and saw enough of their thievery to be able to lay information against them, if ever he should again make his way to a town or village, and see the face of a magistrate. The worst of it was that the season for boating was nearly at an end. The inhabitants were day by day driving their cattle up the mountains, there to remain for the summer; and the heads of families remained in the farmhouses almost alone, and little likely to put out so far into the fiord as to pass near him. To drive off thoughts of his poor distressed Erica, he sometimes hammered a little at his skiff; but it was too plain that no botching that he could perform in the cave would render the broken craft safe to float in.
One sunny day, when the tide was flowing in warmer than usual, Rolf amused himself with more evolutions in bathing than he had hitherto indulged in. He forgot his troubles and his foes in diving, floating, and swimming. As he dashed round a point of a rock, he saw something, and was certain he was seen. Hund appeared at least as much bewitched as the islet itself, for he could not keep away from it. He seemed irresistibly drawn to the scene of his guilt and terror. Here he was now, with one other man, in the schooner's smallest boat. Rolf had to determine in an instant what to do; for they were within a hundred yards, and Hund's starting eyes showed that he saw what he took for the ghost of his fellow-servant. Rolf raised himself as high as he could out of the water, throwing his arms up above his head, fixed his eyes on Hund, uttered a shrill cry, and dived, hoping to rise to the surface at some point out of sight. Hund looked no more. After one shriek of terror and remorse had burst from his white lips, he sank his head upon his knee and let his comrade take all the trouble of rowing home again.
This vision decided Hund's proceedings. Half-crazed with remorse, he left the pirates that night. After long consideration where to go, he decided upon returning to Erlingsen's. He did not know to what extent they suspected him; he was pretty sure that they held no proofs against him. He felt irresistibly drawn towards poor Erica, now that no rival was there; and if mixed with all these considerations there were some thoughts of the situation of houseman being vacant, and needing much to be filled up, it is no wonder that such a mingling of motives took place in a mind so selfish as Hund's.
Hund performed his journey by night. He did not for a moment think of going by the fiord. Laboriously and diligently therefore he overcame the difficulties of the path, crossing ravines, wading through swamps, scaling rocks, leaping across water-courses, and only now and then throwing himself down on some tempting slope of grass, to wipe his brows, and to moisten his parched throat with the wild strawberries which were fast ripening in the sheltered nooks of the hills. It was now so near midsummer, and the nights were so fast melting into the days, that Hund could at the latest scarcely see a star, though there was not a fleece of cloud in the whole circle of the heavens. While yet the sun was sparkling on the fiord, and glittering on every farmhouse window that fronted the west, all around was as still as if the deepest darkness had settled down. Hund knew as he passed one dwelling after another—knew as well as if he had looked in at the windows—that the inhabitants were all asleep, even with the sunshine lying across their very faces.
Every few minutes he observed how his shadow lengthened, and he longed for the brief twilight which would now soon be coming on. There were a few extremely faint stars—a very few—for only the brightest could now show themselves in the sky where daylight lingered so as never quite to depart. A pale green hue remained where the sun had disappeared, and a deep red glow was even now beginning to kindle where he was soon to rise. But man must have rest, be the sun high or sunk beneath the horizon; so that Hund saw no face, and heard no human voice, before he found himself standing at the top of the steep rocky pathway which led down to Erlingsen's abode.
He found everything in a different state from that in which he had left the place. The stable-doors stood wide, and there was no trace of milk-pails. The hurdles of the fold were piled upon one another in a corner of the yard. It was plain that herd, flock, and dairy-women were gone to the mountain; and though Hund dreaded meeting Erica, it struck upon his heart to think that she was not here. He felt now how much it was for her sake that he had come back.
His eye fell upon the boat which lay gently rocking with the receding tide in its tiny cove; and he resolved to lie down in it and rest, while considering what to do next. He went down, stepping gently over the pebbles of the beach lest his tread should reach and waken any ear through the open windows, lay down at the bottom of the boat, and fell asleep.
Oddo was the first to come forth, to water the one horse that remained at the farm, and to give a turn and a shake to the two or three little cocks of hay which had been mown behind the house. His quick eye noted the deep marks of a man's feet in the sand and pebbles below high-water mark proving that some one had been on the premises during the night. He followed these marks to the boat, where he was amazed to find the enemy (as he called Hund) fast asleep. Oddo was in a great hurry to tell his grandfather (Erlingsen being on the mountain); but he thought it only proper caution to secure his prize from escaping in his absence.
He summoned his companion, the dog which had warned him of many dangers abroad, and helped him faithfully with his work at home; and nothing could be clearer to Skorro than that he was to crouch on the thwarts of the boat, with his nose close to Hund's face, and not to let Hund stir till Oddo came back. Then Oddo ran, and wakened his grandfather, who made all haste to rise and dress. Erica now lived in Peder's house. Hearing Oddo's story, she rushed out, and her voice was soon heard in passionate entreaty, above the bark of the dog, which was trying to prevent the prisoner from rising.
"Only tell me," Erica was heard to say, "only tell me where and how he died. I know he is dead—I knew he would die; from that terrible night when we were betrothed. Tell me who did it—for I am sure you know. Was it Nipen? O Hund, speak! Say only where his body is, and I will try—I will try never to speak to you again—never to——"