Let nothing swerve it from its course.”
Thus did the Minstrel sing as he sat at the boat’s stern and guided it along its watery path. The sea was calm; the waves were sleeping; the winds breathed very softly on the sails of red and blue. The fairy vessel glided onward, steadily, proudly, towards its goal in the distant North. [[168]]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MAID OF THE MORNING
The voyage was scarcely begun. Close on the starboard side appeared the headland of Wainola; directly in front lay the bar, a long, narrow, pebbly beach, jutting far out into the deep sea. Like an old and skilled seaman, the Minstrel suddenly changed his vessel’s course, veering sharply towards the west in order to pass round the low-lying barrier. But, just as the boat was gliding through the shallow water near the end of the bar, the wind ceased blowing. The sails hung useless from the mast; not a breath of air was stirring; scarcely a ripple could be seen on the face of the sea. The fairy vessel hesitated, then stopped stock-still not forty paces from dry land.
Was the South Wind angry? Why should she treat the prince of minstrels in this ungrateful manner? But Wainamoinen did not stop to argue; he was too wise to find fault with wind and weather. He looked on this side of the [[169]]little ship—nothing but water, growing deeper and deeper and stretching away and away to the blue horizon. He looked on that side—the shallow water, the narrow bar, and beyond it the great northern sea and the winding shore which marked the way to the Frozen Land. Then quickly he seized his other oar, and thrust it out over the gunwales.
He was preparing to row the boat around the bar, when suddenly he was startled by hearing his name called, not harshly, but in tones of friendship and inquiry. He looked up. His face grew red with confusion, his lips trembled with vexation; for, right before his eyes, he saw one whom he by no means wished to see.
Midway between the boat and the sandy, pebbly bar a maiden was standing knee-deep in the quiet water. Her head was bare, save for the long, dark tresses that fell in profusion over her shoulders and dipped their ends into the wavelets that were playing modestly above her bare white ankles. Her cheeks were red—red as the dawn of a summer day. Her eyes were dark—dark as the midnight hour in winter. One of her fair hands was raised to shade her [[170]]face from the glaring noonday sun; in the other she held a bundle of long silken ribbons which she had been washing in the sea.
“O Wainamoinen!” called the maiden. “O hero of the sea, do you know me?”