Leonard Lindsay ;

by Angus B. Reach

‘So, the fame of Tronda, the Lapland witch, that could sell winds, was noised abroad all over the Indies. She never went ashore—but in her galley, with the eagle’s beak, she cruised among the islands and along the main. The Spanish captains often went aboard the galley, and humbled themselves before the witch, and bought winds to carry them from isle to isle, and port to port, each wind being purchased with a lump of gold. When the Inquisition, which was established in Cuba, heard of this strange trafficking, they sent caravals of war to capture the sorceress, but her powers baffled all their skill. Sometimes, she stilled the air, so that all the ships lay motionless together. Then, just as the Spaniards would get out their boats to row to the Norse galley, a gentle breeze would fan her sails, and she would glide deftly away, while Tronda, who took a pleasure in tormenting her pursuers, would stand upon the poop, worshipping her strange gods, and singing her unlawful incantations. At other times, she would raise mists, in the midst of which the Spaniards would grope for days, firing guns, and ringing bells—so that, at last, the ships of war gave up the chase, and returned to the Havannah. But no one who sought Tronda to buy a wind, had ever any difficulty in boarding her galley. She received all such with fair words and courteous bearing, and gave them, in return for their gold, each a large stoup, or jar, the mouth of it sealed with wax, bearing strange figures and signs. This jar each captain took with him, and directly the anchor was lifted, Tronda would instruct him to break the seal, when immediately the fair breeze would fill the sails, and the ship would move gaily on her way. So, by this traffic, Tronda amassed vast riches, and every week the galley sunk lower and deeper in the water, with its increasing freight of precious stones and gold. But it was not alone fair and gentle breezes which the Lapland witch trafficked in. She sold adverse winds and awful storms to the enemies of luckless mariners. She sold calms, too, which haunted a hapless ship, chaining her, as it were, to the unruffled sea, until, drop by drop, the fresh water was drunk out, and the sailors died on the deck, or cast themselves overboard in their raving delirium of thirst. And so many a customer came to Tronda to buy prosperous winds for friends, and wrecking tempests for enemies. The smug merchant purchased a fair wind for himself, and a baffling breeze for his rival in the trade. The love-lorn maiden bought a prosperous gale for her sweetheart’s ship, and the jealous dame paid gold for a tempest to wreck the bark of a faithless lover.

‘Now, comrades, years moved slowly on, and the Norse galley was so deep in the water with gold and precious stones, that, had it not been for enchantment, she would have sunk outright. Then the blue-eyed and long-haired mariners entreated Tronda that she would allow them to look again upon the mountains and the Fiords of Norway, and that she would raise a westerly breeze to carry them home across the ocean. But the witch scoffed at their requests, giving them foul words, and saying that she must have more gold. The chief of the crew was a young man called Torquil, and he it was who sighed most for home, because he had left a maiden there whom he loved, and from whom he had been long parted. Therefore, after Tronda had retired to the great cabin, where she lived alone, Torquil entered it unbidden. It was quite dark, for the cabin was beneath the water, and no light came down to it from the deck, but an ancient lamp of bronze swung slowly from the beams overhead, and in this lamp burnt a flame, although there was neither wick nor oil to feed it. The witch was sitting in a great chair like a throne, and before her were open boxes crammed with lumps of gold, which gleamed in the flicker of the bronze lamp. On the table lay the magic crystal in which the sorceress could see the future; and upon the high back of the antique chair, in which she sat, perched two ravens, grey with age, both of which uttered a low, hoarse croak as Torquil entered.

‘“Mother,” he said, for all who spoke to the witch so addressed her—“mother, I would go home to my own country; I long again to see the face of my father and of my betrothed. Therefore, I bid you raise a favouring westerly gale; for, if you do not, neither I nor one of my comrades will put hand to rope on board this galley again.”

‘With that the witch rose slowly to her feet. ‘Look you, Torquil Randa,’ quoth she, ‘whoso in this galley disobeys my orders, the elements, which are at my beck and bidding, shall overwhelm him.’

‘But Torquil stood erect, nothing daunted. “I know your powers, mother,” he answered; “but as well be sunk in the sea as wander for ever upon its surface, homeless and friendless. You heard what I have spoken; I will not live longer away from kindred and home.”

‘And so saying, the bold mutineer left the cabin. Tronda followed him on deck, muttering her Lapland rhymes, and waving her arms aloft in the air. As she did so, great banks of black clouds began to rise from out the ocean, and the sea-birds flew round the masts of the galley, screaming with affright. There was a dead calm in the air, and it grew so hot that the mariners gasped for breath. The bright tropic day, shipmates, seemed to be changing into night, and the clouds got lower and lower until they appeared to rest upon the topmasts of the galley. All this time the witch was kneeling upon the poop, chanting her accursed rhymes, and Torquil was standing alone beside the mainmast, for his comrades were terrified, and slunk away from him as from a man under a curse.

‘Suddenly the witch stopped, and shaded back from her eyes her long flowing hair, gazing intently at the sky. In the next moment, a flash of lightning—so bright that every one on board the galley, except the sorceress, was dazzled and blinded by the glare—tore out of the dark heavens; struck the main topmast of the galley; and with a crash, like that of all the artillery in the world fired off in one salvo, passed gleaming down the wood, shaking the ship as though she had been lifted a hundred feet, and then allowed to fall splash into the sea. The explosion was followed by a thick sulphurous smoke, which seemed to come steaming up out of the inmost recesses of the galley, and while the crew, blinded and almost choking in the yellow sulphurous fume, were groping about the deck, they heard the loud screaming laughter of the witch, followed by the croak of the ravens from the cabin.

‘At length the smoke or mist gradually cleared away, and as it did so, and the men recovered their eyesight, they saw Tronda standing as usual on the poop, with her old aspect of haughty command. Her first words, comrades, were—

‘“Fling that carrion into the sea, and take warning by the fate of Torquil Randa how you dispute the will of such as I.”

‘So the sailors advanced, all trembling, to the foot of the mainmast, where lay the body of the man of whom the witch spoke. He had been struck by the lightning, comrades, but there was neither scaith nor scar upon his flesh, only on the forehead a small round blue spot. So the mariners lifted up the body, and while it was yet warm plunged it over the side. It sunk feet first, and as the head disappeared, the crew thought that the dead face frowned.