Then the first feminine exclamation escaped from Miss Lähnfeldt:
“But, good heavens, how shall we get back?”
Stellan bowed for the first time with a polite and amiable smile:
“By steamer,” he said. “We will sleep at Mariehamn tonight.”
As a matter of fact he was not so sure of it. The wind higher up had evidently been a few degrees more in the west than he had counted on. In its present quarter they would pass south of Åland. But the storm lower down might draw them south ... otherwise ... well what otherwise? Well, otherwise they would go to hell....
What does a man like Captain Stellan Selamb feel when he mutters to himself that he might “go to hell”? Nothing really. He has never properly conceived death. His egoism is so hard and polished that the thought of death slips off everywhere.
If you want an opinion of a man, try to find out his views of death. Death comes in life and not after life. And it is what happens in life that makes us really alive. What else are we but our conception of, our defiance of, our struggle against, and our victory over, death? Yes, because there is a real, a living courage which conquers death....
Stellan had the gambler’s courage. It is always better than cowardice. But it is really very superficial. A hard frozen surface with no resilience beneath. Clear but shallow thoughts that have never penetrated to the depths of life. An inner reflection of a blind, pitiless Fate.... How much of the courage that meets us in the wild and bloody history of the world is not of this kind? The great gamblers! Minds and souls are only cards to them, playing cards or trumps in the wild gamble of politics and war. They only know themselves even as trumps in the game. Even their own terrible egoism is really only a mirage. For death has not made them alive....
The balloon drove eastwards with the gale. Stellan sailed low and saved his ballast. In the north they could see Åland and Lernland and Lumparland. The waves washed heavily in the apparent stillness around them. They were sinking lower and lower. The last sack of ballast went over. The balloon began to shrink round the valve. There must be a leakage. Now a giant roaring wave attempted to grab the gondola.
Stellan had to throw out everything loose, the ballast sacks themselves, ropes, fur coats, stethoscopes and barometer. He used the momentary respite to assist Miss Lähnfeldt up into the rigging where she sat as on a trapeze and held on to the cordage. She was very pale and looked as if she might faint any moment, so he thought it best to make her fast.