The Sentimental Vikings

by R. V. Risley

While they were binding his hand, I crept to the bulwark, and raising a shield between my head and the cliffs, looked past the stern of the ship at the white waters that reached for us, and the brown arms that opened to us, and I thought of the suffocation of the sea and of its indifference in its anger, and of its beautiful white carelessness, as I went down—down—down—to the bottom-most seaweeds, where the eyeless cold things crawl.

I was very weak; now they brought me meat and strong, flame-coloured water to drink; and the meat did me much good, but the flame-coloured water sent me to sleep under one of the forward benches, out of the arrows’ flight. And when I waked a new dawn was breaking, and I heard the shouting of men outside the ship, the shouting of men in the language of those countries; and I lifted my sick head and gazed at them, but they curved and numbered and unnumbered themselves, till at last I heard in my brain a twanging of bows, and looking upward to the fore-deck, I saw our few men gathered there, crouching, and sending their arrows fast. The sea had not gone down, but the wind did not whistle, and in the west the clouds looked like heavy rain and thunder. As the mist that is over the sea-beach in those countries in the morning cleared off, I looked again, and I found that the men who disputed with us from the beach were few, they being but six knights in half-armour. Now, lying and watching, for I felt that I could do nothing till the world was level again, I saw the fifteen of our men jump from the fore-deck at a word from the oar-captain, and thrusting the long oars over the sides, strain on them in the sand as each wave came in, and as they strained upon them the ship would lift and glide out more, and faster; till at last we were quite afloat and the great waves took us, and turned us about, like a piece of bark. Then the men fell into their places and we headed the white seas, the half-armed men on the beach riding knee-high on their horses into the foam, and calling curses at us. So, after weary rowing, and every man of us wet as the sea, we came out of that bay and rode the great smooth waves that had been white the day before.

Well, we kept far from the land, only seeing, one dusk, a white cliff on our right from a distance; then the gale took us again and drove us westward and then northward, till the men would throw down their oars and cry out to the gods of the sea, to say which one of them should be sacrificed to their hate.

We were half mad with the drink we had in the ship—for we had no beer—and as we lurched and swayed in the depth between two seas, or as we climbed up sideways and balanced for a moment while the foam flew and then surged down with sick motion, the men would trail their oars on the water and sink their heads on the handles. So, for many days we were driven as the wizards drive the storm-ships across the face of the icy moon, as the waves kiss her wet sides and the clouds break over her. So northward we went, till the cold struck into our bones and we ate fried fat like the savages of Finland; and we passed great ice-fields sometimes, at night, when the moon shone on them for miles and gave them smoothness which the sun took all away again, and made them grey and rugged and small.

Still we went north; our water was almost gone and we had only the devil’s drinks, and the wet bread and fish. Now, when we passed the ice-fields the oar-captain would order us to fasten to them, and we would bring into the ship great chunks of ice and melt them in the cauldron by the mast-foot. But there came a time when for three days we saw no ice and the men’s tongues were stiff for thirst. Their eyes looked cruel and sad. Thus, one night, as I lay at my place under the forward seat, wrapped in a bear-skin, I saw the black figure of a man on the rail at the other side of the ship. He crept to where the rail ends in the lift of the fore-deck. Then, dropping to the bench under which I lay, he crawled to the cauldron where a little water was left, and putting in his hand he broke off, little by little, pieces, until I could see by the long time that his hand rested in the cauldron that there was no more there. Then I reached out and grasped him by the leg and pulling him off the bench I rolled myself about him and called out for the oar-captain. The oar-captain came and all the men came after and they lit a light, and I lay off him, and we saw his face; and the oar-captain said—and to every man it seemed just—

“You have stolen the last of our water, more than your share, therefore you shall go to join your comrades under the sea; when you are ready.”

The man drew himself up and walked the length of the ship stepping from bench to bench, we all following, our feet making a clatter as we went. He came to the upper-deck and climbed up, and went to the rail and stood there and looked on the moveless sea under the moonlight.

“Are you ready?” asked the oar-captain.

“Get out your oars,” answered the man.

Some half of the men went to their places and shoved the oars out.