Feats on the Fiord

by Harriet Martineau

Rolf could not resist the impulse to send his heavy stone into the middle of the tarn, to see the effect upon the men below. He gave a good cast, on the very instant; and prodigious was the splash, as the stone hit the water, precisely in the middle of the little lake. The men did not see the cause of the commotion that followed; but, staring and turning at the splash, they saw the rings spreading in the dark waters which had lain as still as the heavens but a moment before. How could two guilty, superstitious men doubt that the waters were thrown into agitation by the pirate's last words? Yet they glanced fearfully round the whole landscape, far and near. They saw no living thing but a hawk which, startled from its perch on a scathed pine was wheeling round in the air in an unsteady flight. The pirate pointed to the bird with one hand, while he laid the other on the pistol in his belt.

"Yes," said Hund, trembling, "the bird saw it. Did you see it?"

"See what?"

"The water-sprite, Uldra. Before you throw me in to the water-sprite, we will see which is the strongest."

And in desperation Hund, unarmed as he was, threw himself upon the pirate, sprang at his throat, and both wrestled with all their force. Rolf could not but look; and he saw that the pirate had drawn forth his pistol, and that all would be over with Hund in a moment if he did not interfere. He stood forward between the two pine stems, on the ridge of the rock, and uttered very loud the mournful cry which had so terrified his enemies at Vogel islet. The combatants flew asunder, as if parted by a flash of lightning. Both looked up to the point whence the sound had come; and there they saw what they supposed to be Rolf's spectre, pointing at them, and the eyes staring as when looking up from the waters of the fiord. How could these guilty and superstitious men doubt that it was Rolf's spectre, which, rising through the centre of the tarn, had caused the late commotion in its waters? Away they fled—at first in different directions; but it amused Rolf to observe that rather than be alone, Hund turned to follow the track of the tyrant, who had just been threatening and insulting him, and driving him to struggle for his life.

"Ay," thought Rolf, "it is his conscience that makes me so much more terrible to him than that ruffian. I never hurt a hair of his head; and yet, through his conscience, my face is worse than the blasting lightning to his eyes. Heigh-ho! Where is Erlingsen? It is nothing short of cruel to keep me waiting to-day, of all days; and in this spot, of all places—almost within sight of the seater where my poor Erica sits pining, and seeing nothing of the pastures, but only, with her minds' eye, the sea-caves where she thinks these limbs are stretched, cold and helpless, as in a grave. A pretty story I shall have to tell her, if she will only believe it, of another sort of sea-cave."

To pass the time he took out the shells he had collected for Erica, and admired them afresh, and planned where she would place them, so as best to adorn their sitting-room, when they were married. Erlingsen arrived before he had been thus engaged five minutes; and indeed before he had been more than a quarter of an hour altogether at the place of meeting.

"My dear master!" exclaimed Rolf, on seeing him coming, "have pity on Erica and me, and hear what I have to tell you, that I may be gone."

"You shall be gone at once, my good fellow! I will walk with you, and you shall tell your story as we go."

Rolf shook his head, and objected that he could not, in conscience, take Erlingsen a step further from home than was necessary, as he was only too much wanted there.