“Well, if it be not a house, what else can it be?” said Wolfgang. “Let us try to look inside of it, and examine it more closely.”
The two men soon contrived to enter the edifice which so puzzled them; and presently Wolfgang exclaimed triumphantly:—
“See! there can be no question more on the matter. This is only a house. Here are seats and tables for men to sit at, and beds for them to sleep in; and here is a fire-place and a great iron pot to cook food. Now, you can have no hesitation. It is just a wooden house, and rather stupidly planned.”
“I have no doubt,” said Athelstane, “that it is intended for a habitation; but is it not inexplicable that a builder who can work so cleverly should construct it so unsuitably for a common house? Why is it not made to stand squarely and steadily on the ground? What is the sense of these long soaring poles standing up through the middle, with the coils of ropes and bales of sacking? And this? This is the most mysterious thing of all,” said Athelstane, placing his hand on a wheel, which instantly stirred the great beam at the back.
“They are strange certainly,” replied Wolfgang,—“very strange and useless things, I should say, about a house which would be much more comfortable and answer its purpose better without them. I cannot agree with you that the builder was really a clever man, or knew what he was about, else he would never have erected those poles or made that senseless, upside-down roof, instead of a foundation; or, above all, have constructed that totally unmeaning apparatus behind the whole structure.”
“I differ from you,” said Athelstane, after some moments more of reflection. “I think it is we who are not clever or ingenious, and who cannot find out what the carpenter who made this building intends to do with it. I do not believe that singular form beneath (so little fit for a building only intended for a house), nor those poles and ropes and vast sheets of woven stuff, nor yet that mysterious great beam, were all added to a mere house for nothing,—for no purpose whatever. I think, Wolfgang,” and Athelstane laid his hand on his friend’s arm earnestly,—“I think what we are looking at is something more than a house. I think it is not intended to stand always where we see it.”
“You are dreaming, Athelstane,” said Wolfgang, with a short laugh. “Where on earth should a house go, if it is not to stand always where it is built? Who would want to move such a structure as this?”
“I do not know,” said Athelstane, humbly. “I do not profess to understand the mystery of it: only I see that the master carpenter who built it must have been a very great carpenter indeed; and I cannot believe that he has made all these things in vain, or for no important purpose. If he wanted only a house, why did he not simply build a house standing flat on the ground, and with no shafts piercing the air, and no vast guiding beam at the back? Trust me, friend Wolfgang, this is something more than the common abode of which alone you seem able to think.”
While the two simple-minded men yet talked together, the sun had risen, and there was a sound of many waters and of rising waves; and through an opening in the rocks, which the travellers had not perceived in the twilight, the great ocean became revealed to their eyes. Higher and higher rose the tide, till it almost reached where the strange wooden building still lay motionless; and the travellers retreated a little up the shore, and stood, awe-struck and breathless, watching what might happen. Then down from the cliff above ran a band of mariners, and leaped on board the vessel, and hauled in the anchor; and presently the waves lifted up the ship, and she floated bravely on the waters. Very soon, the mariners set the sails, which had lain idly on the deck, the pilot placed his hand on the rudder and guided the noble barque, and she was borne by the winds of heaven far off beyond the uttermost ken of the two poor travellers upon the shore.
Then, after a time, Wolfgang turned to his companion, and said: “Athelstane, you spoke truth. Yon House-of-the-Sea was made, as you foresaw, for other use than to stand upon the ground. It was planned for a different element,—the free world of waters. And now we see what was the purport of so many things which before seemed to us useless,—the keel, the masts, the sails, the marvellous and mysterious rudder. How wonderful it is! How wise and far-seeing the great carpenter who made the ship!”