"I pray to Heaven we may meet this bold marauder, now that our keel is ploughing our own waters," said Konrad, whose old Norwegian spirit flashed up in his bosom at the sight of his native hills. "Would I had a score of my old crossbowmen that I left behind me at Bergen, and thou with thy two culverins"——
"St. Olaf forefend!" rejoined Hans, hastily hitching up his wide chocolate-coloured inexpressibles, as he thought of his investment in wheat and malt and tanned leather, and the risk they would run. "I would I were safe under the batteries of our old castle of Bergen, where, please Heaven and honest Nippen, I will drop my anchor to-night. And now, Master Konrad, that once again we are in sight of Gamle Norgé, how meanest thou to shape thy course, and keep to the windward of misfortune? Dost thou steer for the Elbe or the Weser? There the Lubeckers and Holsteiners are every day playing at ding-dong with arquebuse and caliver."
"Thou askest, Hans, what I scarcely know how to answer. My band of crossbowmen will, of course, be still at Bergen, but the king, doubtless, will have given them another captain. Sir Erick is in his grave; and Anna, Heaven only knows where. I have nothing now to tie me to the spot I love so well," he continued, sighing, "but many sad and bitter memories, which are better committed to oblivion; so, as thou sayest, I will even wend me to the Elbe, and there follow the fortunes of the war."
"Then be it so: I can give thee a letter to Arnold Heidhammer, a certain burgomaster, which may avail thee much; and if a hundred rose nobles will be of service, thou mayest have them. For this cargo, above which we are now treading—But, ho! yonder is a sail that beareth towards us somewhat suspiciously. St. Olaf! but she shot round that promontory like a sea-gull!"
Hans sprang upon one of the culverins Konrad had referred to, and, shading his eyes with his hand (for his fur cap was minus a peak, and there were then no telescopes), he peered intently at the stranger.
"Friend Hans, what dost thou make her out to be?" asked Konrad, whose heart beat strangely.
"A great frigate, galley rigged—with ten culverins a-side—crossbows on her forecastle—and hackbuts on her poop; full of men, too—see how many helmets are glinting in the sunshine!"
The shore was five or six miles distant. The noonday sun shone joyously on the bright blue sea, and full upon the snow-white canvass of the approaching vessel, which was bellying in the land breeze, above the tier of brass-mouthed culverins that peered from the red port-holes of the bow, waist, and her towering poop and forecastle, which were covered with a profusion of heraldic and symbolical carving and gilding. Her masts were each composed of two tall spars, having four large square sails; she had ponderous basketed tops and poop-lanterns—a great square sprit-sail, under which the water that boiled against her bow was flashing, as it wreathed and foamed in the light of the meridian sun, and bubbled under the counters of her towering stern.
Several men in armour were visible above the gunnel, and their pikes glinted as she approached, rolling over the long waves; and there was one whose suit of polished steel shone like silver, as he stood on the lofty poop.
She was still above half a mile distant, and Hans, who liked not her appearance (for he had a mortal aversion to every thing like cannon, or coats-of-mail, on board ship) crowded all sail, and stood away, right up the Fiord. Upon this a red flash broke from the tall forecastle of the stranger—a wreath of white smoke curled aloft through her thick rattlins and white canvass, and a stone bullet, that whistled over the water, cut Hans' foreyard in the slings, and brought a ruin of splintered wood, and rope, and fluttering canvass, down upon his deck.