When that was done there was nothing more to do but exercise patience, and scan the seas in hope of sighting a vessel of some sort. While they so waited, and tried to cheer each other's flagging courage, Yaspard asked, "Did you fall from a ship; or how was it you came to be tossed up here?"
The answer was startling. "You have some cursed bad men in those Shetland Isles," said the sailor, with all the energy he could command. "Hanging is too good for wreckers; they should be roasted at the false fires they light for poor seafaring men's destruction."
Yaspard stared his astonishment. "I never heard the like!" he ejaculated. "Wreckers! Why, there isn't one left in Shetland. Not one, I am sure. What do you mean?"
"I mean that the stout schooner I sailed in would be in a safe harbour now instead of drifting as spindle-wood among those skerries if there were no wreckers on your islands, my lad!"
"There must be some mistake. Do tell me what happened," was all Yaspard could say. And then he heard the story.
The schooner Norna was caught in a tempest crossing the North Sea, and sustained considerable damage—so much that it was deemed advisable to seek harbour for repairs. She was making for Bressa Sound when a slight fog came down which compelled the skipper to defer attempting to thread a way among those rock-bound isles till the atmosphere was clearer. While beating about, not quite sure of their exact locality, a bright light was observed which was believed to be lit for their guidance. There was no other reason why a great blaze should appear in the middle of the night on a lonely height, which loomed fitfully through the mist and gloom, and was evidently the crest of some hill. No doubt a safe harbour lay in that neighbourhood, and the Norna was confidently put on another course—one which it was believed led her within the safe arms of a sheltering fiord. On the one hand could be dimly discerned a low irregular coast, on the other rose the gaunt shadowy outline of majestic crags.
It was no friendly voe the hapless schooner had come into, but the dangerous sound, studded with stacks and holmes, which flow between Lunda and Boden.
Guided by that treacherous beacon, the Norna sailed slowly on and crashed on a sunken rock not far from the cliffs of Trullyabister.
The man who told the story had gone aloft to take in sail, when it was discovered that the vessel was among breakers; and when she struck he was dashed from the rigging. He could give no account of what further happened, beyond remembering that he was clinging at one time to a spar, and saw his ship backing (as he described it) into deep ocean.
"I think it must have happened not far from here," he said; and Yaspard, looking towards Boden, over which the soft tints of twilight were beginning to blend with mists from the surrounding seas, replied—