A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

"You at least had no part therein," she said gently. "The rest is forgotten. Now we have no long way to go before I am again at home."

Now the land rose again from the level of the Jederen marshes we had passed, and we had high black cliffs to port and ahead of us. Along their feet the great rollers of the open sea broke, thundering, even in this quiet weather, and the spray shot up and fell in white clouds unceasingly. It was wonderful even now, and what it would be like in a day of gale and heavy seas might be guessed. And still we held on, with Asbiorn at the helm, though I could see as yet no opening in the mighty walls that barred our way onward. Gerda at my side laughed at me, in all pride in her homecoming, and in the wild coast at which I was wondering.

The cliffs seemed to part us as we neared those before us, and I saw a deep and narrow cleft between them into which we steered. The sail was lowered now, and the oars manned, and so we passed from the open into the shadow of the mighty cliffs which rose higher and higher as we rowed between them. For half a mile the swell of the sea came with us, and then it died away, and we were on still, deep water, clear as glass, but black in the shadow of the grim and sheer rock walls. The rhythm of the leisurely swing and creak and plash of the long oars came back to us from either side as if we rowed amid an unseen fleet, and when the men broke into the rowing song they were fain to cease, laughing, for the echoes spoiled the tune.

The fjord opened out before long, and there was another passage to the sea, up which came a little swell from the open. The cliffs to our right had been those of a great island which lies across the mouth of the fjord itself, which we were but now entering. And then again the cliffs closed in, and we were in the silence. On the verge of the cliffs here were poised great stones, as if set to roll down on those who would try to force a passage, but they were more than man might lift. They might have been hove here by Jotuns at play, so great were they, in truth.

Now, it was Asbiorn's plan that we should try to reach the upper end of the fjord, where the hall and village lay, in the dusk of evening, if we could do so, unseen. Gerda knew that it was unlikely that we should be spied until we had passed higher yet; or, at least, were we seen, that none would wonder at the return of a ship which was known to be that of Heidrek. The brown sail which had been our terror might help us here and now.

Far up its reaches the fjord branched, one arm running on toward the east, and the other, which was our course, northward. Here, at the meeting of these branches, there was a wider stretch of water, ringed around with mountains which sloped, forest clad, to the shores, and dotted with rocky islets round which the tide swirled and eddied in the meeting of the two currents, for it was falling.

We had timed our passage well, and would wait here until we might find our way to the hall as the men were gathered for the evening meal. Our plan was to land and surround the building, and so take Arnkel if we could without any fighting.

Hidden away at the foot of a valley here was a little village, but at first we saw no signs that we were noticed. Presently, however, when Asbiorn had taken the ship into a berth between two of the islets, and the men were getting her shore lines fast to mooring posts which seemed to be used only now and then, a boat with two men in it came off to us thence, and we were hailed to know what we needed in these waters.

Asbiorn answered, saying that we were friends, waiting for tide up the fjord, and they went ashore on the islet next them, and came across it to us. Then Gerda rose up from where she sat watching them and called them by name, and they started as if they had seen a ghost, so that she laughed at them. At that they took courage, and came nearer.

The stern of the ship was not more than a couple of fathoms from the rock, and there they stood, and it was good to hear their welcome of the lady whom they had deemed lost. Then they came on board, and there was rejoicing enough, both in the finding, and in the peace which would come with Gerda's return. They told us how that Arnkel was carrying on his mastership here with a high hand, being in no wise loved. They said that men blamed him for bringing Heidrek on the land, seeing that he had made terms with him when it would have been as well to fight; and that, moreover, there were not a few who believed that in some way he had a hand in the loss of Gerda. Now, he was trying to gather the men in order to go to the help of Eric the King, who was fighting in the Wick, as we had heard, and that was not at all to the mind of those who had followed Thorwald. War in the Wick, beyond their ken altogether, was no affair of theirs.