The third member of the crew lay down across the boat behind the thwart; he put a folded oilskin jacket under his head and fell asleep.
For a long time, almost an hour, I lay in silence, thinking only of what I saw and heard around me. There was more than enough to keep me awake.
I noticed how the sail billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their little pats were wonderfully friendly. Every now and then I could see the white frothing of the wave-crests above the gunwale, and sometimes under the sail the horizon was visible but, more often, there was nothing to be seen but the broad back of a wave, on which, for a time, the boat tossed before sinking down once more. The roll was scarcely noticeable, for the boat kept at the same angle all the time and cleft her way through the waves. The motion was comfortable and soothing to the mind; quite unlike the violent lunging of bigger ships.
Gradually the conversation came to life again. It was Eric who proved to be the most talkative, though the man on the thwart also threw in a word here and there.
We began to talk about old Hrolfur.
We spoke in a low voice so that he shouldn't hear what we said. There was, indeed, little danger of his doing so—the distance was too great and the storm was bound to carry our words away; but men always lower their voices when they speak of those they can see, even though they are speaking well of them.
My eyes scarcely left old Hrolfur, and as the men told me more, my picture of him became clearer and clearer.
He sat there silent, holding on to the steering ropes and staring straight ahead, not deigning us a single glance.
The crew's story was roughly this.
He was born and bred in the village, and he had never left it. The croft which he lived in was just opposite the weir in the river which flowed through the village, and was named after it.