One midsummer evening, a westerly squall arose which sent the fishing-boats flying to the shelter of their voes and vicks. Those storms rise and fall with tropical rapidity and violence. Six hours after it was at its height, the wind had fallen to an ordinary fresh breeze, the sky was smiling as before, and only the wrathful surf, rolling white and broken under the influence of a changing tide, remained to tell of the tempest. All the boats had returned in safety, and there should have been rejoicing in Unst; but instead, men frowned and women trembled, for the fishers had brought news that the Denschman was on the coast: his well-known sail had been seen hovering beyond the holms of Gloup; he was coming upon the wings of the westerly wind; he would be on the Westing Bicht ere long. There was no landing-place available—with such a heavy sea—on that side of the island; but the Denschman knew what he was about, doubtless. He would scud to the nor’ard, fly round the Flugga skerries and Skau, would lay-to, and bide his time till dusk drew down; then he would alight on the eastern shore, and work his wild will upon the defenceless isle. Such had been his tactics aforetime. The people ran to the high lands of Vaalafiel and Patester to mark the Denschman’s course, for where he meant to land, there they must not be.
Soon the Erne was descried emerging from a mist of spindrift, and bearing swiftly towards Unst, heading straight for the isle, and not—as the folk had supposed—skirting the coast. Did the vikinger mean to bring their vessel to harbour among those crags, where the sea was in such a turmoil? Was the Erne a demon-ship that could dare everything and perform such a feat? On he came right before the wind with a following tide; but when well in the Westing Bicht, some experienced seamen affirmed that there must be something wrong aboard, for the Erne did not rise on the waves with its usual buoyancy; he seemed to plunge madly forward, as if in fierce conflict with the ocean he had ruled so long. By-and-by it was seen that the vessel laboured more and more, yet carried full sail, as if on speed depended salvation.
‘I would not say but he’s sprung a leak, or the like,’ said an old udaller among the onlookers. ‘Who but a madman would bring a ship in-shore like yon, if all was taut aboard!’
‘That is so,’ remarked a seaman. ‘Without doubt, he’s in straits; and he’s going to try to beach on the Aire of Widwick. It’s his only chance, and a poor one.’
‘Pray the powers he may not make the Aire,’ replied the old man; ‘and I’m thinking,’ he added, ‘that the powers will hear us. There is something fatal amiss with that evil one. See yon! He’s not obeying his helm; he’s just driving with wind and tide. He’s in a mighty strait, praise the Lord!’
‘If he misses the Aire, he’ll go in shallmillens [the fragments of eggshell] upon the baas of Flübersgerdie,’ said a fisherman, with a grim smile; and all cried out: ‘Pray the powers it may be so!’
As if the powers thus invoked were ready to prove their immediate willingness to answer the cry of the oppressed, the wind veered more to the west, and carried the disabled ship against the holm of Widwick, a small islet which lies off the creek, and wards from it the full force of the North Atlantic. If the Erne had stranded on the holm, some of his crew might have effected a landing there; but that was not the end of the viking’s barque; she reeled back from the holm with a gash in her side that was a death-wound indeed, and drifted onwards once more. Now, would she gain the creek? No! In a few moments the Erne was carried past the little harbour, where lay the sole chance of deliverance, and then crashed among the rocks of Flübersgerdie.
‘Praise to the powers that are above all!’ cried the men of Unst, and even gentle-hearted women rejoiced as the Denschman, barque and crew, disappeared among the breakers.
The people returned to their homes, happy in the thought that the rocks of Fatherland had proved able protectors, and that Unst was for ever rid of its most dreaded foe.