Sinking with terror and confusion, Anna had but a faint idea of all that passed around her, until she found herself once more in the bright moonlight with another ring on her finger, Bothwell's arm around her, and her burning cheek resting against his; while the diamond-like water flashed around them as it fell from the broad-bladed oars, and the seamen pulled hard and silently away from the cavern. The appearance of the hermit, who stood on a pinnacle of rock holding aloft a blazing pine branch with one hand, while he bestowed benedictions with the other, adding not a little to the energy with which they increased the distance between them and the shore. The Earl saw that the poor recluse was perfectly insane, yet there was something singularly wild and sublime in his aspect; he seemed so like an inspired prophet, or seer, or one of those strange demons with whom Norse superstition peoples every element, every wood, and rock, and hill.
Cheerfully pulled the stout rowers, and again the towers of Bergen rose above them, shining snow-white in the light of the autumnal moon. As they neared the ship, the startled Ormiston mattered a curse and a Hail Mary! in the same breath, when a long line of fire suddenly gleamed across the bosom of the water, and there shot past their bows a swift boat, in which stood a tall figure brandishing a spear; his whole outline was dark and opaque, while a blaze of light shone behind him.
"'Tis only a night-fisher!" said Anna, with a smile; and now one more stroke of the oars brought them alongside of the Earl's ship, from the mizen-peak of which his own banner, bearing the chevronels of Hepburn and the azure bend of Dirleton, waved heavily in the night wind.
The Fleur-de-lys was gaudily painted and gilded, low in the waist, but high in the bows and poop, where two great wooden castles, bristling with falcons and arquebuses, towered above the water. Each mast was composed of two taper spars, fidded at the topcastles. The Earl's crest—a white horse's head—reared up at the prow, balanced by a mighty lantern at the stern. Her sails were loose, and glimmered in the moonlight as they flapped heavily against the yellow masts and spars.
The Earl was welcomed by a shout from the sailors, who, with the master and his mates, crowded, bonnet in hand, around him.
Giving orders to sail immediately for the Isles of Orkney, he bore Anna to the little cabin, that, during his wanderings by the Adriatic and Italian shores, had received many a similar tenant. Like a boudoir, it was hung with the richest arras, lighted by silver lamps that were redolent with perfume, as they swung from the deck above, and from globes of rose-coloured glass shed a warm and voluptuous glow around the lovers.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FLEUR-DE-LYS.
I'll lo'e thee, Annie, while the dew
In siller bells hangs on the tree;
Or while the burnie's waves o' blue,
Run wimplin to the rowin' sea.
Scott Song.
It is difficult, says the Magister Absalom, to analyse the nature of the Earl's love for this fair but fickle Norwegian.