“I am glad I brought my net too,” thought Rolf. “My rod had done good duty; but if I am coming upon a shoal, I will cast my net, and be home, laden with fish, before they think of looking for me.”
Happy would it have been if Rolf had cast his net where others were content to fish, and had given up all idea of going further than was necessary: but his boat was still dropping down towards the islet which he had fixed in his own mind as the limit of his trip; and the long solitary reach of the fiord which now lay between him and it was tempting both to the eye and the mind. It is difficult to turn back from the first summer-day trip, in countries where summer is less beautiful than in Nordland; and on went Rolf, beyond the bounds of prudence, as many have done before him. He soon found himself in a still and somewhat dreary region, where there was no motion but of the sea-birds which were leading their broods down the shores of the fiords, and of the air which appeared to quiver before the eye, from the evaporation caused by the heat of the sun. More slowly went the canoe here, as if to suit the quietness of the scene, and leisurely and softly did Rolf cast his net: and then steadily did he draw it in, so rich in fish that when they lay in the bottom of the boat, they at once sank it deeper in the water, and checked its speed by their weight.
Rolf then rested awhile, and looked ahead for Vogel islet, thinking that he could not now be very far from it. There it lay looming in the heated atmosphere, spreading as if in the air, just above the surface of the water, to which it appeared joined in the middle by a dark stem, as if it grew like a huge sea-flower. There is no end to the strange appearances presented in northern climates by an atmosphere so different from our own. Rolf gazed and gazed as the island grew more like itself on his approach; and he was so occupied with it as not to look about him as he ought to have done at such a distance from home. He was roused at length by a shout, and looked towards the point from which it came; and there, in a little harbour of the fiord, a recess which now actually lay behind him—between him and home—lay a vessel; and that vessel, he knew by a second glance, was the pirate-schooner.
Of the schooner itself he had no fear, for there was so little wind that it could not have come out in time to annoy him; but there was the schooner’s boat, with five men in it—four rowing and one steering—already in full pursuit of him. He knew, by the general air and native dress of the man at the helm, that it was Hund; and he fancied he heard Hund’s malicious voice in the shout which came rushing over the water from their boat to his. How fast they seemed to be coming! How the spray from their oars glittered in the sun, and how their wake lengthened with every stroke! No spectator from the shore (if there had been any) could have doubted that the boat was in pursuit of the skiff, and would snap it up presently. Rolf saw that he had five determined foes gaining upon him every instant; and yet he was not alarmed. He had had his reasons for thinking himself safe near Vogel islet; and calculating for a moment the time of the tide, he was quite at his ease. As he took his oars he smiled at the hot haste of his pursuers, and at the thought of the amazement they would feel when he slipped through their fingers; and then he began to row.
Rolf did not overheat himself with too much exertion. He permitted his foes to gain a little upon him, though he might have preserved the distance for as long as his strength could have held out against that of the four in the other boat. They ceased their shouting when they saw how quietly he took his danger. They really believed that he was not aware of being their object, and hoped to seize him suddenly, before he had time to resist.
When very near the islet, however, Rolf became more active, and his skiff disappeared behind its southern point while the enemy’s boat was still two furlongs off. The steersman looked for the reappearance of the canoe beyond the islet; but he looked in vain. He thought, and his companions agreed with him, that it was foolish of Rolf to land upon the islet, where they could lay hands on him in a moment; but they could only suppose he had done this, and prepared to do the same. They rowed quite round the islet; but, to their amazement, they could not only perceive no place to land at, but there was no trace of the canoe. It seemed to them as if those calm and clear waters had swallowed up the skiff and Rolf in the few minutes after they had lost sight of him. Hund thought the case was accounted for when he recalled Nipen’s displeasure. A thrill ran through him as he said to himself that the spirits of the region had joined with him against Rolf, and swallowed up, almost before his eyes, the man he hated. He put his hands before his face for a moment, while his comrades stared at him; then, thinking he must be under a delusion, he gazed earnestly over the waters as far as he could see. They lay calm and bright, and there was certainly no kind of vessel on their surface for miles round.
The rowers wondered, questioned, uttered shouts, spoke altogether, and then looked at Hund in silence, struck by his countenance, and finished by rowing two or three times round the islet, slowly, and looking up its bare rocky sides, which rose like walls from the water; but nothing could they see or hear. When tired of their fruitless search they returned to the schooner, ready to report to the master that the fiord was enchanted.
Meantime, Rolf had heard every plash of their oars, and every tone of their voices, as they rowed round his place of refuge. He was not on the islet, but in it. This was such an island as Swein, the sea-king of former days, took refuge in; and Rolf was only following his example. Long before, he had discovered a curious cleft in the rock, very narrow, and all but invisible at high-water, even if a bush of dwarf-ash and birch had not hung down over it. At high-water, nothing larger than a bird could go in and out beneath the low arch; but there was a cavern within, whose sandy floor sloped up to some distance above high-water mark. In this cavern was Rolf. He had thrust his little skiff between the walls of rock, crushing in its sides as he did so. The bushes drooped behind him, hanging naturally over the entrance as before. Rolf pulled up his broken vessel upon the little sandy beach, within the cave, saved a pile of his fish, and returned a good many to the water, and then sat down upon the sea-weeds to listen. There was no light but a little which found its way through the bushy screen and up from the green water; and the sounds—the tones of the pirates’ voices, and the splash of the waters against the rocky walls of his singular prison—came deadened and changed to his ear; yet he heard enough to be aware how long his enemies remained, and when they were really gone.
It was a prison indeed, as Rolf reflected when he looked upon his broken skiff. He could not imagine how he was to get away; for his friends would certainly never think of coming to look for him here: but he put off the consideration of this point for the present, and turned away from the image of Erica’s distress when he should fail to return. He amused himself now with imagining Hund’s disappointment, and the reports which would arise from it; and he found this so very entertaining that he laughed aloud; and then the echo of his laughter sounded so very merry that it set him laughing again. This, in its turn, seemed to rouse the eider-ducks that thronged the island; and their clatter and commotion was so great overhead that any spectator might have been excused for believing that Vogel islet was indeed bewitched.