A Sea Queen's Sailing Part 4

"I wrought for myself. I am glad that things have turned out thus in the end. Now do you sleep, if you can. You shall wake when need is."

He came aft and took the oar from me, and I was glad to lie down on the floor boards amidships and rest. And the first thing that I noted was that the Saxon sculled better than myself, and wonderfully easily. Then I slept heavily for maybe three hours.

Bertric roused me about that time. The wind had come, and the sky had clouded over, and the boat was slipping fast through the water, looking eastward indeed, but the wind headed us too closely for that to be of much use. It was blowing from the worst quarter for us, the southeast, and freshening. The boat was fit for little but running, and at this time I waxed anxious as to what was before us, for any Caithness man has heard tales of fishers who have been caught in the southeast winds, and never heard of more.

Now, it would make a long tale to tell of what came thereafter on the open sea. Bertric would have me sleep now, and I did so, for I was fairly worn out, and then the weather grew wilder, until we were driving before a gale, and our hope of making even the Shetlands was gone.

So we drove for two whole days until we had lost all reckoning, and the gale blew itself out. But for the skilful handling of the boat by Bertric, I know we might have been swamped at times in the following seas, but Dalfin knew naught of the peril. He baled when it was his turn, cheerfully, and slept be times, so that I envied him his carelessness and trust in us.

The wind wore round to the northwest at its last and hardest, and then sank quickly. On the third morning we were in bright sunshine, and the sea was going down fast, and again we were heading east, with a half hope of making some landfall in Norway, if anywhere. At noon we shared the last loaf in just such a calm as had fallen on us at first; and at last Bertric and I might sleep again, leaving Dalfin to keep watch. We might be in the track of vessels from Norway westward and southward, but we could not tell, and maybe we expected him to see nothing. But it may tell how wearied we were that we left so untried a landsman to watch for us, though, indeed, either of us would wake with the least uneasiness of the boat in a rising wind. So we slept a great sleep, and it was not until near sunset that Dalfin roused us.

"There is somewhat like a sail on the skyline to the eastward," he said. "I have watched it this half hour, and it grows bigger fast.

I took it for a bird at first and would not wake you."

That brought us to our feet in a moment, and we looked in the direction he gave us.

"A sail," said Bertric. "She is bearing right down on us, and bringing an easterly breeze off sh.o.r.e with her. If only we can hail her!"

"It is not Heidrek again?" asked Dalfin anxiously.

"No; his sails are brown. Nor does one meet men like him often. We shall find naught but help from any other, if we may have to work our pa.s.sage to their port. That is of no account so long as we are picked up."

In half an hour the breeze from the eastward reached us, and we bore up across the course of the coming ship. She came swiftly down the wind, but was either badly steered, or else was so light that with her yard squared she ran badly. At times the wind was almost spilt from out of her sail, and we looked to see her jibe, and then she would fill again on her true course and hold it a while.

"She is out of the way badly handled," said Bertric, watching her in some puzzlement. "I only hope that they may know enough to pick up a boat in a seaway."

Chapter 3: The Ship Of Silence.

Soon we knew that she must be the ship of some great chief, for her broad sail was striped with red and white, and the sun gleamed and sparkled from gilding on her high stemhead, and from the gilded truck of the mast. Then we made out that a carven dragon reared itself on the stem, while all down the gunwale were hung the round red and yellow war boards, the shields which are set along the rail to heighten it when fighting is on hand. We looked to see the men on watch on the fore deck, but there were none, though, indeed, the upward sweep of the gunwale might hide them.

Presently she yawed again in that clumsy way which we were wondering at, and showed us her whole side, pierced for sixteen oars, and bright with the shields, for a moment, and then she was back on her course. We could not see the steersman for the sail, in any case, but we saw no one on deck.

Now we were right across her bows, and within hail of her, and yet no man had shown himself. Bertric and I lifted our voices together in a great hail, and then in a second, and third, but there was no answer. Only she yawed and swung away from us as if she would pa.s.s us, and at that Dalfin cried out, while I paid off fast to follow her, and again Bertric hailed. Now she was broad off our bows and to the starboard, an arrow flight from us, and Bertric and I were staring at her in amazement. She was the most wonderfully appointed ship in all sea bravery we had ever seen--but there was no man at the helm, and not a soul on deck.

"They are asleep, or dead," said I; and hailed again and again, all the while edging down to her, until we were running on the same course, side by side.

"We must overhaul her somehow," said Bertric, "or we are left. This is an uncanny affair."

The height of her great square sail told, and little by little she drew ahead of us. We felt the want of the oars more at this time than any, and I think that with them we might have overhauled her at once. Had she been steered, of course she would have left us astern without hope; but as we chased her now, the unsteady flaws of the rising breeze, which we could make full use of, rather hindered her. Now and again, with some little shift, her sail flapped and she lost her way, and yawed so that we gained on her fast, while a new hope of success sprang up in our minds. Then the sail would fill again, and she was away from us.

Once, as the breeze veered a point or two, I thought she must have jibed, for the clew of the sail almost swung inboard; but it filled again.

"She cannot jibe," said Bertric. "See, her yard is braced square for running, and cannot shift. If all holds, she must run till doomsday thus. Her mast may go in a squall, or one of the braces may part--but I don't see what else is to stop her."

But the wind was light, and hardly strained the new rigging, while there was a stout running backstay set up with all care, and even the main halliard had been led far aft to serve as another. She was meant to run while she might, and that silent and lonely ship, pa.s.sing us on an endless voyage into the great westward ocean, was as strange and uncanny a sight as a seaman could meet in a long life. Moreover, though she was in full war trim, she seemed to have some deck cargo piled amidships, which might be plunder.

So for an hour or more that chase went on. Once or twice we were a full half-mile astern of her, and then gained with the chance of the breeze. Once we might have thrown a line on board her, but had none to heave. Then she gathered way and fled from us, even as we thought we had her. It was just as if she knew that we chased her, and would play with us. We almost lost heart at that time, for it was sickening.

"The ship is bewitched," said Dalfin, and in truth we agreed with him.

Why, and by whom, she had been set adrift thus, or what had befallen her crew, we could not guess. Still, she was our only hope, and we held on after her again. Neither Bertric nor myself had the least thought of giving up, for we knew that the chances of the breeze were all in our favour, so long as it came unsteadily as now. And always, when it fell, we sculled fiercely and gained on her, if only a little.

So another half hour pa.s.sed, with its hopes and disappointments, and then we were flying down on her with a breeze of our own, when the end came. The wind shifted and I met it, and that shift did all for us. It reached the ship, and took the clew of the sail inboard, shaking and thundering, while the sheets lashed to and fro across the deck. Then somewhere those sheets jammed and held fast, and as if the canvas had been flattened in of set purpose, she luffed, until with a great clap of the sail against the mast, the whole of her upper canvas was aback, and she was hove to helplessly. Maybe she was a furlong from us at the moment, and Bertric shouted.

"We have her," I cried, "if only all holds!"

"She will gather stern way directly," said Bertric, with set teeth.

"Then she will fall off again, and the sheets will get adrift."

We flew down on her, but we had been tricked so often before that we hardly dared to hope. Now we were close to her bows, and we heard the great yard creaking and straining, and the dull flapping of the loose canvas of both tack and clew which had blown inboard.

The ship lurched and staggered under the uneasy strain, but the tackle held, and we had her. Bertric went to our halliards and lowered the sail as I luffed alongside, and then Dalfin had gripped the rail between two of the shining shields. There was no sea beyond a harmless ripple as yet, and we dropped aft to where a cleat was set for the boats on her quarter, and made fast.

Then as we looked at one another, there came to me as it were a breath from my lost home in far-off Caithness, for a whiff of peat smoke hung round us and was gone so quickly that I thought it almost fancy. But Dalfin had smelt it also.

"There is a fire alight on board," he said. "I smelt the smoke.

That means food, and someone on board after all."

With that he shouted, but there was no answer. It would have been a relief to me if some ship's dog had flown out and barked at us; but all was silent, and that was uncanny here in the open sea, and on such a ship.

"Well," said Bertric, "crew or no, we must go on board. No use in waiting."

He swung himself up from the boat over the high gunwale, and then gave me a hand, and together we hauled up Dalfin, and so stood and stared at all we saw in wonder.

Everything was in perfect trim, and the ship was fitted as if for a long cruise. She had two handsome boats, with carven gunwales and stem and stern posts set on their chocks side by side amidships, with their sails and oars in them. Under the gunwales on either board were lashed the ship's oars, and with them two carved gangway planks which seemed never to have been used. Every line and rope's end was coiled down snugly, and every trace of sh.o.r.e litter had been cleared from the white decks as if she had been a week at least at sea, though we knew, from her course, that she could not be more than a few hours out from the Norway coast. We had guessed that she might have sailed at dawn.

But we wondered not so much at the trim of the ship, though that puzzled us; just aft of the mast, and set against its foot, was the pile we had taken for deck cargo, and the like of it I had never seen. There had been built of heavy pine timbers, whose ends b.u.t.ted against either gunwale below, and rose to a ridge pole above, a pent house, as it were, which stood at the ridge some six feet high from the deck, and was about two fathoms long. Its end was closed with timbers also, and against this end, and round, and partly over the roof, had been piled f.a.gots of brushwood, so that it was almost covered. Either from haste, or else loosened by the movement of the ship, one or two of these f.a.gots had not found a place with the rest, but lay on the deck by the boats. As if to keep the pile steady, on either side had been set a handsomely carved sledge, and on the pile at the end was a light wagon, also carved, and with bright bronze fittings. The wheels had been taken off and set inside it. Under the piles showed a barrel or two, which it was plain were tar barrels.

"Firewood for a long sea pa.s.sage," I said. "And sledges and wagon for a land journey at its end. One would say that the ship was flitting a whole family to Iceland--the new land to which men go today."

"Aye, I have heard of that land, and of families who go there,"

said Bertric. "That seems to explain some things, but not why the ship is adrift."

"What will be in the house yonder?" asked Dalfin.

"Maybe it was built for the women of the family," I said.

Now, this was so likely that for the moment the wonder pa.s.sed. We had to tend ship while the breeze held off if we would do anything with her presently. She was not of the largest build, but both Bertric and I knew that it would be all that we three could do, one of us being a landsman moreover, to handle her if it came on to blow at all freshly.

Now, I would not have it thought that we three castaways were much in the mind to puzzle over the ship which we had gained, almost against hope. It was enough for us to rejoice in the feel of firm planks under our feet once more, and to find naught terrible, but promise of all we needed, while the strain of the longboat voyage with its ever-present peril was over. Dalfin broke that first short silence.

"I am desperately hungry," he said. "Surely there will be food on board?"

The breeze freshened up again, and the sail flattened against the mast with a clap, and the ship quivered. It was naught to us, but it made the landsman start and look upward as if expecting to see somewhat carried away, while I laughed at him.

"Work first and food afterward," said Bertric. "We must tend ship while wind is little, if at all. Why, we are not more than half starved yet, for barley bread stands by one n.o.bly."