“If one of you’ll go with me, I’ll try to drift down upon them!” said Niels Köller quietly.
“It’ll be certain death, Niels!” said the foreman, laying his hand upon the young man’s shoulder. “You understand that, I suppose! I’m not one to be afraid, but I won’t throw away my life. So you know what I think.”
The others took the same view. A boat would be dashed to pieces against the moles. It would be impossible to get it out of the harbor in this weather, let alone work down to the wreck with wind and waves athwart! It might be that the sea had made a demand upon the village—no one would try to sneak out of his allotted share; but this was downright madness! With Niels Köller himself it must pass; his position was a peculiar one—with the murder of a child almost on his conscience and his sweetheart in prison. He had his own account to settle with the Almighty; no one ought to dissuade him!
“Then will none of you?” asked Niels, and looked down at the ground. “Well, then I must try it alone.” He went slowly up the beach. How he was going to set about it no one knew, nor did he himself; but the spirit had evidently come over him.
They stood looking after him. Then a young sailor said slowly: “I suppose I’d better go with him and take the one oar. He can do nothing by himself.” It was Nilen’s brother.
“It wouldn’t sound right if I stopped you from going, my son,” said “the Mormon.” “But can two of you do more than one?”
“Niels and I were at school together and have always been friends,” answered the young man, looking into his father’s face. Then he moved away, and a little farther off began to run to catch up Niels.
The fishermen looked after them in silence. “Youth and madness!” one of them then said. “One blessing is that they’ll never be able to get the boat out of the harbor.”
“If I know anything of Karl, they will get the boat out!” said “the Mormon” gloomily.
Some time passed, and then a boat appeared on the south side of the harbor, where there was a little shelter. They must have dragged it in over land with the women’s help. The harbor projected a little, so that the boat escaped the worst of the surf before emerging from its protection. They were working their way out; it was all they could do to keep the boat up against the wind, and they scarcely moved. Every other moment the whole of the inside of the boat was visible, as if it would take nothing to upset it; but that had one advantage, in that the water they shipped ran out again.