The Virgin of the Sun

by H. Rider Haggard

He thought awhile then answered, pointing to those who galloped, now but tiny figures on the distant bank:

“Master, yonder is death, sure death; and yonder,” here he pointed to the sea, “is death—perhaps. Master, you have a God, and I, Kari, have another God, mayhap same God with different name. I say—Trust our Gods and sail on, for Gods better than men. If we die in water, what matter? Water softer than rope, but I think not die.”

I nodded, for the reasoning seemed good. Rather would I be drowned than fall into the hands of those who were galloping on the shore, to be dragged back to London and a felon’s doom.

So I pressed upon the tiller to bring the Blanche more into mid-channel, and headed for the sea. Wider and wider grew the estuary and farther and farther away the shores as the Blanche scudded on beneath her small sails with the weight of the gale behind her, till at last there was the open sea.

Within a few feet of the tiller was a deck-house, in which the crew ate, built of solid oak and clamped with iron. Here was food in plenty, ale, too, and with these we filled ourselves. Also, leaving Kari to hold the tiller, I took off my armour and in place of it clothed myself in the rough sea garments that lay about with tall greased boots, and then sent him to do likewise.

Soon we lost sight of land and were climbing the great ocean billows, whose foamy crests rolled and spurted wherever the eye fell. We could set no course but must go where the gale drove us, away, away we knew not whither. As I have said, the Blanche was new and strong and the best ship that ever I had sailed in upon a heavy sea. Moreover, her hatches were closed down, for this the sailors had done after we weighed, so she rode the waters like a duck, taking no harm. Oh! well it was for me that from my childhood I had had to do with ships and the sailing of them, and flying from the following waves thus was able to steer and keep the Blanche’s poop right in the wind, which seemed to blow first from one quarter and then from that.

Now over my memory of these events there comes a great confusion and sense of amazement. All became fragmentary and disjointed, separated also by what seemed to be considerable periods of time—days or weeks perhaps. There was a sense of endless roaring seas before which the ship fled on and on, driven by a screaming gale that I noted dimly seemed to blow first from the northwest and then steadily from the east.

I see myself, very distinctly, lashing the tiller to iron rings that were screwed in the deck beams, and know that I did this because I was too weak to hold it any longer and desired to set it so that the Blanche should continue to drive straight before the gale. I see myself lying in the deck-house of which I have spoken, while Kari fed me with food and water and sometimes thrust into my mouth little pellets of I knew not what, which he took from the leathern bag he wore about him. I remembered that bag. It had been on his person when I rescued him at the quay, for I had seen it first as he washed himself afterwards, half full of something, and wondered what it contained. Later, I had seen it in his hand again when we left my house after the death of Blanche. I noted that whenever he gave me one of these pellets I seemed to grow strong for a while, and then to fall into sleep, deep and prolonged.

After more days—or weeks, I began to behold marvels and to hear strange voices. I thought that I was talking with my mother and with my patron, St. Hubert; also that Blanche came to me and explained everything, showing how little she had been to blame for all that had happened to me and her. These things made me certain that I was dead and I was glad to be dead, since now I knew there would be no more pain or strivings; that the endeavours which make up life from hour to hour had ceased and that rest was won. Only then appeared my uncle, John Grimmer, who kept quoting his favourite text at me—“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity,” he said, adding: “Did I not tell you that it was thus years ago? Now you have learned it for yourself. Only, Nephew Hubert, don’t think that you have finished with vanities yet, as I have, for I say that there are plenty more to come for you.”

Thus he seemed to talk on about this and other matters, such as what would happen to his wealth and whether the hospitals would be quick to seize the lands to which he had given it the reversion, till I grew quite tired of him and wished that he would go away.