CHAPTER XVI.
Clap on more sail, pursue, up with your fights,
Give fire—she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!
Shakspeare.
A very handsome brig, which, with several other vessels, was the property of Magnus Troil, the great Zetland Udaller, had received on board that Magnate himself, his two lovely daughters, and the facetious Claud Halcro, who, for friendship’s sake chiefly, and the love of beauty proper to his poetical calling, attended them on their journey from Zetland to the capital of Orkney, to which Norna had referred them, as the place where her mystical oracles should at length receive a satisfactory explanation.
They passed, at a distance, the tremendous cliffs of the lonely spot of earth called the Fair Isle, which, at an equal distance from either archipelago, lies in the sea which divides Orkney from Zetland; and at length, after some baffling winds, made the Start of Sanda. Off the headland so named, they became involved in a strong current, well known, by those who frequent these seas, as the Roost of the Start, which carried them considerably out of their course, and, joined to an adverse wind, forced them to keep on the east side of the island of Stronsa, and, finally compelled them to lie by for the night in Papa Sound, since the navigation in dark or thick weather, amongst so many low islands, is neither pleasant nor safe.
On the ensuing morning they resumed their voyage under more favourable auspices; and, coasting along the island of Stronsa, whose flat, verdant, and comparatively fertile shores, formed a strong contrast to the dun hills and dark cliffs of their own islands, they doubled the cape called the Lambhead, and stood away for Kirkwall.
They had scarce opened the beautiful bay betwixt Pomona and Shapinsha, and the sisters were admiring the massive church of Saint Magnus, as it was first seen to rise from amongst the inferior buildings of Kirkwall, when the eyes of Magnus, and of Claud Halcro, were attracted by an object which they thought more interesting. This was an armed sloop, with her sails set, which had just left the anchorage in the bay, and was running before the wind by which the brig of the Udaller was beating in.
“A tight thing that, by my ancestors’ bones!” said the old Udaller; “but I cannot make out of what country, as she shows no colours. Spanish built, I should think her.”
“Ay, ay,” said Claud Halcro, “she has all the look of it. She runs before the wind that we must battle with, which is the wonted way of the world. As glorious John says,—