"In with you!" some loud voice said, as man after man was seen in outline coming down the pathway. "In with you! We have lost time enough already."
"Where is she? I can't see the boat," answered the foremost man.
"You can't miss her," said one behind, "unless the brandy has got into your eyes."
"So I should have said; but I do miss her."
Oddo shook with stifled laughter as he partly saw and partly overheard the perplexity of these men. At last one gave a deep groan, and another declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep at the bottom of the creek, drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-sprite. Oddo squeezed Erica's little hand as he heard this. If it had been light enough, he would have seen that even she was smiling.
One of the men mourned their having no other boat, so that they must give up their plan. Another said that if they had a dozen boats he would not set foot in one after what had happened. He should go straight back, the way he came, to their own vessel. Another said he would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord for some chance of seeing the boat. This he persisted in, though told by the rest that it was absurd to suppose that the boat had loosed itself and gone out into the fiord in the course of the two minutes that they had been absent. He showed the fragment of the cut thong in proof of the boat not having loosed itself, and set off for a point on the heights which he said overlooked the fiord. One or two went with him, the rest returning up the narrow pathway at some speed—such speed that Erica thought they were afraid of the hindmost being caught by the same enemy that had taken their boat. Oddo observed this too, and he quickened their pace by setting up very loud the mournful cry with which he was accustomed to call out to the plovers on the mountain-side on sporting days. No sound can be more melancholy; and now, as it rang from the rocks, it was so unsuitable to the place, and so terrible to the already frightened men, that they ran on as fast as the slipperiness of the rocks would allow, till they were all out of sight over the ridge.
"Now for it, before the other two come out above us there!" said Oddo, and in another minute they were again in the fiord, keeping as much in the shadow as they could, however, till they must strike over to the islet.
"Thank God that we came!" exclaimed Erica. "We shall never forget what we owe you, Oddo. You shall see, by the care we take of your grandfather and Ulla, that we do not forget what you have done this night. If Nipen will only forgive, for the sake of this——"
"We were just in the nick of time," observed Oddo. "It was better than if we had been earlier."
"I do not know," said Erica. "Here are their brandy-bottles, and many things besides. I had rather not have had to bring these away."