It was the carved Valkyrie maiden that had been the Spray's figurehead. Exquisitely and almost perfectly hand-carved, the wooden statue leaned forward, as though she would embrace the whole lake to her bosom.
Hans Van Doorst's eyes were soft as he took it from Pieter. "My sweetheart!" he murmured.
Captain Klaus winged down from the ridge pole of the house to alight near them. Clucking softly to himself, happy because Hans was once more with him, he followed the three men down the beach. Ramsay found a coil of rope, then another, and farther on was the Spray's torn sail. Ramsay pointed out onto the lake.
"About there is where we saw the White Sturgeon," he said.
"I know," Hans Van Doorst murmured. "We saw him a half-dozen times."
Ramsay looked at him, puzzled. Then, "The sailors told me he always brings bad luck."
"The sailors!" Hans scoffed. "They know nothing about anything except maybe how to stuff themselves with good whitefish that the fishermen bring them! The White Sturgeon noses his way to the top when a storm comes, so he is bad luck? Do not believe it! He is good luck! He comes to the top so that he may show fishermen the way back to shore!"
Ramsay grinned appreciatively. This, in spite of the fact that the Dutch fisherman's idea of the White Sturgeon bringing good luck was as superstitious as the sailors' notion that he always brought bad, fitted in. It was what Hans should have said.
"How big is that sturgeon?" Ramsay asked.
"The Grandfather of all lake fish," Hans Van Doorst asserted solemnly. "Have you not noticed that, like all grandfathers, he is white? In truth, I have never seen a bigger fish anywhere."