A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

We were sailing with the easterly wind on our beam, and making maybe six knots on it, with the two reefs down. The full crew of such a ship as this for such a cruise without any warlike ending to it would be about twenty, or perhaps a few less. She pulled sixteen oars a side, and with a war crew on board would muster ninety-six men--three to an oar--with a few extra hands, as the helmsman and the chiefs, to make a total of a hundred. Her decks would be crowded, of course, but she would be down to her bearings, being built for war cruises, and in a breeze all her men would be sitting up to windward as shifting ballast, so to speak. It is not likely, therefore, that we could have done much better had we managed to shake out the reefs, seeing that the ship was light. Her pebble ballast had been taken out when she was drawn up for the last time on shore, and in the hurry it had been needless to replace it.

So the two pirate longships overhauled us fast, and presently their low, black hulls were plain to us. It was time we did somewhat if we were not to be taken without an effort to escape.

"See here," said Bertric suddenly, "I know somewhat too well how those ships can sail; but I think that this ship would beat them in a reach to windward. That, of course, would run us in toward the Norway shore, and I have ever heard that it is as dangerous as any. I do not know it, but the Lady Gerda may do so. If the worst came to the worst, it is in my mind that we might take to the boat and let the ship go her own way, if she is beyond our handling when we make the shore."

"If we can sight land, it is possible that we may be sighted also," said I. "It seems our only chance. I will call Gerda."

Bertric nodded, and I went forward and called her accordingly, rousing Dalfin, who slumbered in the sun under the lee of the boats amidships, as I passed him.

Gerda came quickly from her awning as she heard me, and saw the two ships at once. They were then some eight miles astern of us, and she looked at me with an unspoken question.

"They are Heidrek's ships," I said. "We have to try one last chance of outsailing them."

"Anything rather than that we should fall into such hands," she said at once.

Now Bertric told her what seemed to be our one plan, and she answered that she was well content to be guided by us. Neither she nor we knew rightly where we were, nor how far it might be to the coast. But she did know that everywhere that shore was belted by rocky islands, and sea-washed skerries.

"You may be able to steer into safety between them," she said. "You may split the ship on some half-sunk rock not far from the land, and so we ourselves may be saved in the boat. I think that is the best--for so may come a sea grave for my grandfather--and no enemy's hand shall touch him or his."