I
THORKELL VILGERDSON was not only reputed the handsomest youth in all
Norway, but was famous as a redoubtable champion, who had unfailingly
killed his man in every combat, and who was so skillful with weapons
that he had never been seriously wounded in any of the countless
affrays in which he had taken part. Therefore, although every one of
the thirty-nine other men on the Sea-Raven hated him venomously, not
one challenged him, or provoked him, or affronted him in any way, but
all were most scrupulously civil.
They all hated him. The three chieftains, Halfdan Ingolfson, Kollgrim
Erlendson, and Lodbrok Isleifson, who owned the ship and had planned
the adventure, hated him because, to their incredulous amazement, they
found themselves indubitably afraid of him. Their six thralls, Vifill,
Ulf, Hundi, Kepp, Sokholf and Erp, hated him, even more than they hated
their own masters, for his air of ineffable superiority. The twenty-six
other Vikings hated him because they felt themselves his inferiors and
were unwilling to acknowledge it, even in their thoughts. Most of all
his four perfidious sham friends, Hrodmar Finngerdson, Sigurd Atlison,
Gellir Kollskeggson and Bodvar Egilson, who had hatched the plot to
lure him to his doom and put him out of the way, and had enticed him to
join the expedition, hated him for his beauty, his grace, his jaunty
demeanor and his vivacious wit. Attack him they dared not, and, sulking
inwardly, they bided their time, outwardly suave and smiling, but with
furtive winks at each other.
Their opportunity came after a storm which drove them, they knew not
where or whither, for, in those times, stars were the mariners’ only
guides. Throughout three nights and three days they saw neither star
nor sun; in fact, could see barely two ships’ lengths through the
driving scud and sluicing rain; and all that time they dared not set so
much as a rag of sail, but, taking turns, every man of them, thralls,
warriors and chieftains alike, with but brief snatches of uneasy
sleep, labored mightily at the oars, to keep the ship head to gale,
or bailed furiously to keep her afloat. So terrific was the tempest
that Kollgrim, their acknowledged leader, was unwilling to relinquish
the helm and clung to it until exhaustion compelled him to rest. Even
when he signalled for a relief neither Halfdan nor Lodbrok showed
any alacrity for undertaking his momentous task. As they hesitated,
although only for an instant, Thorkell seized the tiller just as
Kollgrim’s grasp loosened. So well did he steer, so completely did
he justify his reputation as a seaman, that thereafter it was rather
Kollgrim who acted as relief to him than he to Kollgrim: every man of
them all, Kollgrim included, felt safer with Thorkell at the helm.
An hour or two before sunset of the long northern day the storm blew
itself out, the sky cleared, and the wind slackened and shifted to a
fair breeze. They stepped their mast, hoisted their yard, set a full
sail, and, Halfdan at the tiller, and Lodbrok on lookout at the prow,
the rest feasted. Champing and munching unhurriedly they despatched a
vast quantity of food, washed down with copious drafts of mead. When no
one could swallow another mouthful, Sigurd took the helm and Bodvar the
lookout’s place, and, while Halfdan and Lodbrok ate, the rest disposed
themselves to sleep, most of them to larboard, on the spare oars and
coils of rope, under the rowing-benches.
During the brief northern night Sigurd and Bodvar set the Sea-Raven
on a true course by a whole skyful of brilliant constellations,
but, before dawn, they saw the stars hidden all round the horizon
and gradually higher up, until only a few showed blurredly directly
overhead; so that, when the sleepers waked, they found themselves
enveloped in dense fog, and, soon after dawn, the wind slackened until
they had to man the oars to keep headway on the ship. The weary thralls
and Kollgrim roused last. After Kollgrim waked Thorkell was the only
sleeper and he slept heavily, exhausted by his overexertion at the
tiller.
Eyeing him as he lay on a coil of rope, Hrodmar and Gellir beckoned
Sigurd and Bodvar. They resigned their posts to willing reliefs and
picked their way amidships over and among the resting men and toiling
rowers. Kollgrim, Lodbrok and Halfdan joined them and the seven
conferred. All conned Thorkell and all agreed that he was fast asleep
and far from rousing. Then the three chieftains beckoned their six
thralls and instructed them. Erp and Ulf took convenient lengths of
ratline and knotted in each a clean-running noose. Vifill paired with
Hundi and Sokholf with Kepp, each pair choosing a length of light rope,
thicker than a big man’s thumb. Cautiously the six crawled towards
Thorkell, every man aboard, except a few sleepers and such oarsmen
as were abaft of Thorkell’s position, watching their approach with
malicious relish. Hundi and Vifill slipped their rope under Thorkell’s
knees; Kepp and Sokholf took a turn with theirs round his ankles,
Ulf and Erp each noosed a wrist: when all six were ready they looked
towards Kollgrim, and, at his nod, the two nooses tightened and the
ropes were knotted fast round Thorkell’s knees and ankles. Even that
did not waken him and, as Erp and Ulf pulled their cords and dragged
his arms wide, his four pretended friends sprang on him, turned him
on his face, and, after a violent struggle, for, even with knees and
ankles lashed, Thorkell fought like a wildcat, they pinioned his arms
behind him and turned him once more face upward, trussed and helpless.
Then they gloated over him, told him what they really thought of
him, and insulted him to their hearts’ content. Halfdan, who was an
acclaimed skald, composed and chanted over him an impromptu drapa of
triumph. Even the thralls expressed their envious malignity. Gellir
proposed to run him through and Bodvar to throw him overboard. But
Kollgrim demurred. The thirty-four freemen had taken oath to a pledge
of mutual fellowship, as was customary in all Viking voyages, and he
pointed out that they were bound, all of them, by their oath and must
keep its letter, if not its spirit.
Lodbrok thereupon suggested that they set him adrift, bound as he was,
in their smallest boat, which had been half stove during the storm
and was presumably leaky; putting into it with him a small hide flask
of water and one smoked fish. Then they could accuse him of wilful
desertion.
By then it was nearer noon than sunrise, but no sight of the sun had
they had, nor could any man, in that fog, conjecture the sun’s place in
the sky. Their outlook was all gray mist and smooth groundswell, for
there was not a catspaw of breeze.
From the boat they took its sail, mast and oars; but they did not
search it carefully. In it they laid a leather flask of water and two
little smoked fish. In it they laid Thorkell, trussed as he was, but,
as they launched the boat, Kollgrim cut the ropes at his knees and
ankles.
As boat and ship drifted apart his enemies mocked him, their grinning
faces peering between and over the shields which lined the low rail.
“Hoist your sail!” Bodvar jeered at him, “and make for Norway or
Iceland, as you prefer. You are about as far from the one as from the
other. You have no worse or better chance, either way.”
“Hope you relish your provender!” Gellir called.
“You’ll need both oars soon,” Hrodmar shrilled, “and I don’t see
either.”
“Don’t you wish you had a bailer!” Sigurd shouted.
Soon he saw only fog.
He eyed the dirty water sloshing about in the dory’s bilge. The boat
was not leaking rapidly, but it was leaking. No water had lapped
over the gunwales and the big groundswells were long and smooth. Of
air there was not a breath. For the time being he had only the leaks
to fear. And, in the bow, jammed under the tiny fore-thwart in the
triangular cubby-hole, he saw a small wooden scoop-bailer. It meant
more to him than the two little fish and the leather water-bottle under
the after thwart.
He conned the edges of the gunwales and thwarts. He saw two sharp
splinters. The larger and sharper was where he could not use it; but,
painfully and with great exertion, he wriggled, hunched and wrenched
himself until he brought the cords which bound his wrists against
the other splinter. With efforts distressing at once, and not long
afterwards agonizing, he sawed the rope against the splinter. Panting,
a jelly of exhaustion, shivering and sweating, he all but fainted; but
he found fresh energy every time he glanced at the bilge-water.
At last, just as hope and strength together were failing him, the cord
parted. A few jerks and twists of his arms and hands and they were
free. He shook himself, beat his arms against his chest and sprang
upon the bailer. To his great satisfaction it was not long before no
deftness could scoop it up half full; the boat was not leaking too fast
for him.
As the dense fog and breathless calm continued to brood over the waters
and the slow groundswell even abated, his cockleshell kept afloat not
only all that day and night, but throughout the two following days
and nights. But the third night after he had been set adrift found
him near exhaustion. More than half his time was occupied in bailing
and his muscles ached. He was afraid to sleep for fear of foundering
before he woke. Once, in spite of himself, he fell deeply asleep and
roused to find the gunwales almost awash, so that the most desperate
fury of bailing barely sufficed to save him. In the flurry of effort
his remaining fish went overboard in a scoopful of water, unheeded. His
flask he had emptied by dusk of the second day, control himself all he
could.
As the slow dawn whitened the fog after the short arctic night he
thought he was delirious, for he seemed to hear the roar of surf on
rocks and not far off.
Then, suddenly, all at once, the fog thinned, sunrays lanced the
last wisps of it, the air cleared, he saw the sun plain, saw the sky
cloudless, saw the horizon all round and beheld, close to him and
opposite the just-risen sun, a rocky coast.
Instantly he realized that his enemies had been vastly in error as to
the position of the Sea-Raven and had set him adrift only a few leagues
east of Iceland. In spite of his buzzing head, his parched mouth, his
shivering and trembling limbs, his general faintness, he felt new vigor
infused all through him. With his pitiful beechen scoop he alternately
bailed and paddled. The current, he felt, was drawing him towards the
cliffs. He saw a headland close. With his bailer he strove to guide the
skiff towards it. The currents were kind and towards that headland he
drifted. He saw no beach, but many flat-topped rocks just awash, some
hardly wet by the lazy surges. Between them and him he saw no broken
water. If his boat dashed into or scraped against a rock he might leap
to it without a ducking.
Actually he had the luck to achieve just that and saw his boat stove
and smashed after he had firm footing on almost dry basalt.
He stood in his doublet, hose and brogues, with only his inner girdle,
without belt, mantle, sword, dagger, or even belt-knife. Everything on
him was damp from the fog and the splashing of his long bailing; but,
though his teeth chattered in the chilly morning air, doubly chilly to
him after the milder temperature out at sea, he was not the half-frozen
waif he would have been if he had had to swim ashore.
To his left, to southwards, the cliffs seemed beaten by the surf.
Before him, to westwards, he thought he espied a bit of beach not far
ahead. To his right, northwards, he seemed to descry a headland afar
across a fiord. He walked westwards, swaying, tottering, stumbling,
even staggering, but keeping his feet. Gulls and other sea-fowl
wheeled and screamed above and about him. Not a hundred paces from his
landing-place he came upon a little rill trickling down a nook in the
cliff. He knelt and scooped up a handful of icy water. Then he lay
beside the rivulet and counted a slow hundred between each handful of
the water and the next. Before his thirst was entirely quenched he
stood up.
Then he scanned the rocks for birds’ nests. He saw many; but, of the
scores of eggs he broke, but one was eatable. This he sipped and slowly
swallowed its contents. He felt new life all over him.
Not stumbling now he stepped heedfully forward. He felt strangely large
and light and whatever he gazed at looked dim and vague. But he felt
really able to walk. He rounded a jutting elbow of the cliff.
Before him, irradiated by the slant sunrays, he saw three handsome
young noblewomen, walking arm in arm. All were bareheaded, each with
a forehead-ribbon round her flowing hair. The middlemost was tall,
full-contoured, with very black locks. She was enveloped in a crimson
mantle. The girl on her right was of medium height, slender, with
glossy brown tresses and wore a mantle of dark blue. The third was
small and very lovely, her hair golden, her cheeks pink, her eyes blue,
all set off by a mantle of bright grass-green.
Thorkell thought them norns come to escort him to Valhalla. A cloud,
gray and then inky black, swept between him and his outlook. He felt
himself topple.