Stella Fregelius Part 14

CHAPTER IX

MISS FREGELIUS

While Miss Fregelius was speaking, Morris had been staring at the sail, which, after drawing for a time in an indifferent fashion, had begun to flap aimlessly.

"What is the matter?" asked his companion. "Has the wind veered again?"

He nodded. "Dead from the west, now, and rising fast. I hope that your spirit of prophecy still speaks smooth things, for, upon my word, I believe we are both of us in a worse mess than ever."

"Can't we row ash.o.r.e? It is only a few miles, is it?"

"We can try, but I am afraid we are in for a regular tearer. We get them sometimes on this coast after a spell of calm weather."

"Please give me an oar," she said. "I am used to rowing--of a sort."

So he let down the sail, and they began to row. For ten minutes or so they struggled against the ever-rising gale. Then Morris called to her to ship oars.

"It is no use exhausting ourselves, Miss Fregelius," he said, "for now the tide is on the ebb, and dead against us, as well as the wind."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

Morris glanced back to where a mile behind them the sea was beginning to foam ominously over the Sunk Rocks, here and there throwing up isolated jets of spray, like those caused by the blowing of a whale.

"I am going to try to clear them," he said, "and then run before it.

Perhaps we might make the Far Lightship five and twenty miles away. Help me to pull up the sail. So, that's enough; she can't stand too much. Now hold the sheet, and if I bid you, let go that instant. I'll steer."

A few seconds later the boat's head had come round, and she was rushing through the water at great speed, parallel with the line of the Sunk Rocks, but being momentarily driven nearer to them. The girl, Stella Fregelius, stared at the farthest point of foam which marked the end of the reef.

"You must hold her up if you want to clear it," she said quietly.

"I can't do any more in this wind," he answered. "You seem to know about boats; you will understand."

She nodded, and on they rushed, the ever-freshening gale on their beam.

"This boat sails well," said Stella, as a little water trickled over the gunwale.

Morris made no answer, his eyes were fixed upon the point of rock; only bidding his companion hold the tiller, he did something to the sail. Now they were not more than five hundred yards away.

"It will be a very near thing," she said.

"Very," he answered, "and I don't want to be officious, but I suggest that you might do well to say your prayers."

She looked at him, and bowed her head for a minute or so. Then suddenly she lifted it again and stared at the terror ahead of them with wide, unflinching eyes.

On sped the boat while more and more did tide and gale turn her prow into the reef. At the end of it a large, humpbacked rock showed now and again through the surf, like the fin of a black whale. That was the rock which they must clear if they would live. Morris took the boat-hook and laid it by his side. They were very near now. They would clear it; no, the wash sucked them in like a magnet.

"Good-bye," said Morris instinctively, but Stella answered nothing.

The wave that lifted them broke upon the rock in a cloud of spray wherein for some few instants their boat seemed to vanish. They were against it; the boat touched, and Stella felt a long ribbon of seaweed cut her like a whip across the face. Kneeling down, Morris thrust madly with the boat-hook, and thus for an instant--just one--held her off. His arms doubled beneath the strain, and then came the back-wash.

Oh, heaven! it had swept them clear. The rock was behind, the sail drew, and swiftly they fled away from the death that had seemed certain.

Stella sighed aloud, while Morris wiped the water from his face.

"Are we clear?" she asked presently.

"Of the Sunk Rocks? Yes, we are round them. But the North Sea is in front of us, and what looks like the worst gale that has blown this autumn is rising behind."

"This is a good sea-boat, and on the open water I think perhaps that we ought to weather it," she said, trying to speak cheerfully, as Morris stowed the sail, for in that wind they wanted no canvas.

"I wish we had something to eat," she added presently; "I am so hungry."

"By good luck I can help you there," he answered. "Yesterday I was out fishing and took lunch for myself and the boatman; but the fish wouldn't bite, so we came back without eating it, and it is still in the locker.

Shift a little, please, I will get the basket."

She obeyed, and there was the food sure enough, plenty of it. A thick packet of sandwiches, and two boiled eggs, a loaf, and a large lump of cheese for the boatman, a flask of whiskey, a bottle of beer, another of water, and two of soda. They ate up the sandwiches and the eggs, Morris drinking the beer and Stella the soda water, for whiskey as yet she would not touch.

"Now," she said, "we are still provisioned for twenty-four hours with the bread and cheese, the water and the soda which is left."

"Yes," he answered, "if we don't sink or die of cold we shall not starve. I never thought that sandwiches were so good before;" and he looked hungrily at the loaf.

"You had better put it away; you may want it later," she suggested. And he put it away.

"Tell me, if you don't mind," he asked, for the food and the lightening of the strain upon his nerves had made him conversational, "what is that song which you sang upon the ship, and why did you sing it?"

She coloured a little, and smiled, a sweet smile that seemed to begin in her eyes.

"It is an old Norse chant which my mother taught me; she was a Dane, as my father is also by descent. It has come down in her family for many, many generations, and the legend is that the women of her race always sang it or repeated it while the men were fighting, and, if they had the strength, in the hour of their own death. I believe that is true, for she died whispering it herself; yes, it grew fainter and fainter until it ceased with her breath. So, when I thought that my hour had come, I sang it also, for the first time, for I tried to be brave, and wished to go as my forefathers went. It is a foolish old custom, but I like old customs. I am ashamed that you should have heard it. I thought myself alone. That is all."

"You are a very strange young lady," said Morris, staring at her.

"Strange?" she answered, laughing. "Not at all; only I wanted to show those scores of dead people that their traditions and spirit still lived on in me, their poor modern child. Think how glad they must have been to hear the old chant as they swept by in the wind just now, waiting to give me welcome."

Morris stared still harder. Was this beautiful girl mad? He knew something of the old Norse literature and myths. A fantastic vision rose up in his mind of her forebears, scores and hundreds of them gathered at some ghostly Walhalla feast, listening to the familiar paean as it poured from her fearless heart, and waiting to rise and greet her, the last newcomer of their blood, with "_Skoll_, daughter, _skoll!_"

She watched him as though she read his thought.

"You see, they would have been pleased; it is only natural," she said; "and I have a great respect for the opinion of my ancestors."

"Then you are sure they still exist in some shape or form, and are conscious?"

She laughed again. "Of course I am sure. The world of spirits, as I think, is the real world. The rest is a nightmare; at least, it seems like a nightmare, because we don't know the beginning or the end of the dream."

"The old Egyptians thought something like that," said Morris reflectively. "They only lived to die."

"But we," she answered, "should only die to live, and that is why I try not to be afraid. I daresay, however, I mean the same as they did, only you do not seem to have put their thought quite clearly."

"You are right; I meant that for them death was but a door."