FROM OVER The SEA
At night is joyful
He who is sure of travelling entertainment;
A ship's yards are short;
Variable is an autumn night;
Many are the weather's changes
In five days,
But more in a month.
Ha'vama'l
It developed, however, that the lovers' chances for happiness did not
hang upon so frail a thread as the mercy of Gilli of Trondhjem. While
the exploring vessel was still at sea, with the icy headlands of
Greenland only just beginning to stand out clearly before her bow,
unexpected tidings reached those on board.
Watching the chief, who stood by the steering oar, erect as the mast,
his eyes piercing the distance ahead, Sigurd put an idle question.
"Can you tell anything yet concerning the drift-ice, foster-father? And
why do you steer the ship so close to the wind?"
Without turning his head, Leif answered shortly, "I am attending to my
steering, foster-son."
But as the jarl's son was turning away, with a shrug of his shoulders
for the rebuff, the chief added in the quick, curt tone that with him
betrayed unwonted interest, "And I am looking at something else. Where
are your eyes that you cannot see anything remarkable? Is that a rock or
a ship which I see straight ahead?"
Sigurd's aimless curiosity promptly found an object; yet after all the
craning of his neck and squinting under his hand, he was obliged to
confess that he saw nothing more remarkable than a rock.
Leif gave a short harsh laugh.
"See what it is to have young eyes," he said. "Not only can I see that
it is a rock, but I can make out that there are men moving around upon
it."
"Men!" cried Sigurd.
Excitement spread like fire from stern to bow, until even Helga of the
Broken Heart arose from her cushions on the fore-deck and stood
listlessly watching the approach.
Eyvind the Icelander muttered that any creatures in human shape that
dwelt on those rocks, must be either another race of dwarfs, or such
fiends as inhabit the ice wastes with which Greenland is cursed; but an
old Greenland sailor silenced him contemptuously.
"Landlubber! Has it never been given you to hear of shipwrecks? When
Eric the Red came to Greenland with thirty-five ships following his
lead, no less than four of them went to pieces on that rock. It is the
influence of Leif's luck which has caused a shipwreck so that the chief
can get still more honor in rescuing the distressed ones."
The Icelander grunted. "Then is Leif's luck very much like the sword
that becomes one man's bane in becoming another man's pride," he
retorted.
While he threw all his strength against the great oar, the chief
signalled to Valbrand with his head.
"Drop anchor and get the boat ready to lower," he commanded. "I want to
keep close to the wind so that we may get to them. We must give them
help if they need it. If they are not peaceful, they are in our power,
but we are not in theirs."
As the boat bounded away on its errand of mercy, every man and boy
remaining crowded forward to watch its course. In some way it happened
that Alwin of England was pushed even so far forward as the very bow of
the boat, and the side of the shield-maiden.
The sun rose in her glooming face when she turned and saw him beside
her.
"I have hoped all day that you would come," she whispered; "so I could
tell you an expedient I have bethought myself of. Dear one, from the way
you have sat all the day with your chin on your hand and your eyes on
the sea, I have known that you needed comfort even more than I; and my
heart has ached over you till once the tears came into my eyes."
Her lover gazed at her hungrily. "Gladly would I give every gift that
Leif has lavished on me, if I might take you in my arms and kiss away
the smart of those drops."
A fierce gleam narrowed Helga's starry eyes. "Before we part," she said
between her teeth, "you shall kiss my eyes once for every tear they have
shed; and you shall kiss my mouth three times for farewell,--though
every man in Greenland should wish to prevent it."
Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with a little cry of
despair.
"But you must never come near me after I am married!" she breathed. "The
moment after my eyes had fallen upon your face, I should turn upon my
husband and kill him."
"If it had not happened that I had already slain him," Alwin murmured.
Then he said, more steadily, "This is useless talk, sweetheart. Tell me
the thought which comforted you. At least it will be a joy to me to
cherish in my heart what you have treasured in your brain."
Helga looked out over the tumbling water with eyes grown wide and
thoughtful.
"I will not be so hopeful as to call it a comfort yet," she said, "too
vague is its shape for that. It is a faint plan which I have built on my
knowledge of Gilli's nature. As well as I, you know that he cares for
nothing but what is gainful for him. Now if I could manage to make
myself so ugly that no chief would care to make offers for me... is it
not likely that my father would cease to value me and be even glad to
get rid of me, to you? I would disfigure myself in no such way that the
ugliness would be lasting," she reassured him, hastily. "But if I should
weep my eyes red and my cheeks pale, and cut off my hair... It would all
come right in time; you would not mind the waiting?"
Alwin looked at her with a touch of wonder.
"And you would go ugly for me?" he asked. "Hide your beauty and become a
jest where you have always been a queen, for no other reason than to
sink so low that I might reach up and pluck you? Would you think it
worth while to do that for me?"
But his meaning was lost on Helga's simplicity. She gathered only that
he thought the scheme possible, and hope bloomed like roses in her
cheeks.
"Oh, comrade, do you indeed think favorably of the plan?" she whispered,
eagerly. "I had not the heart to hope much from it; everything has
failed us so. If you think it in the least likely to succeed, I will cut
off my hair this instant."
In spite of his misery, Alwin laughed a little.
"Do you then imagine that the gold of your hair and the red of your
cheeks is all that makes you fair?" he asked. "No, dear one, I think it
would be easier to make Gilli generous than you ugly. No man who had
eyes to look into your eyes, and ears to hear your voice, could be
otherwise than eager to lay down his life to possess you. Trust to no
such rootless trees, comrade. And do not raise your face toward me like
that either; for, in honor, I may not kiss you, and and you are not ugly
yet, sweetheart."
Shouts from those around them recalled the lovers to themselves. The
returning boat was almost upon them; and from among her burly crew the
wan faces of several strangers looked up, while a swooning woman was
seen to lie in the bow. Her face, though pinched and pallid, was also
fair and lovable, and Helga momentarily forgot disappointment in pity.
"Bring her here and lay her upon my cushions," she said to the men who
carried the woman on board. Wrapping the limp form in her own cloak, the
shield-maiden pulled off such of the sodden garments as she could,
poured wine down the stranger's throat, and strove energetically to
chafe some returning warmth into the benumbed limbs.
While the boat hastened back to bring off the rest of the unfortunates,
those of the first load whom wine and hope had sufficiently revived,
explained the disaster.
The wrecked ship belonged to Thorir of Trondhjem; and that merchant and
his wife Gudrid and fourteen sailors made up her company. On the voyage
from Nidaros to Greenland with a cargo of timber, their vessel had gone
to pieces on a submerged reef, and they had been just able to reach that
most inhospitable of rocks and cling there like flies, frozen,
wind-battered, and drenched. The waves, in a moment of repentance, had
thrown a little of their timber back to them, and this had been their
only shelter; and their only food some coarse lichens and a few
sea-birds' eggs.
It was little wonder that when Leif had brought the last load on board,
and drowned their past woes in present comforts, the starved creatures
were almost ready to embrace his knees with thankfulness.
"It seems to me that we should be called 'the Lucky,' and you 'the
Good,'" Thorir said, as the two chiefs stood on the forecastle, watching
the anchor and the sail both rising with joyful alacrity. "Without your
aid, we could not have lived a day longer."
And Gudrid, opening her eyes to see Helga's fair face bending over her
to put a wine cup to her lips, murmured faintly, "A Valkyria could not
look more beautiful to me than you do. Tell me what you are called, that
I may know what name to love you by."
"I am called Helga, Gilli's daughter," the shield-maiden answered, with
just an edge of bitterness on the last words.
Gudrid's gentle eyes opened wide with wonder and alarm.
"Not Helga the Fair of Trondhjem," she gasped, "who fled from Gilli to
his kinsfolk in Greenland? Alas, my unfortunate child!"
In the eagerness in which she clasped her hands, the wine-cup fell
clanging from Helga's hold. "Is he dead?" she cried, imploringly. "Only
tell me that, and I will serve you all the rest of my life! Is Gilli
dead?"
But Gudrid had sunk back in another faint. She lay with her eyes closed,
moaning and murmuring to herself.
Leif, biting sharply at his thick mustache, as he was wont to do when
excited, turned sharply on Thorir.
"What is the reason of this?" he demanded. "What are these tidings
concerning my kinswoman, which your wife hesitates to speak? Is Gilli of
Trondhjem dead?"
Thorir answered with great haste and politeness, "No, no; naught so bad
as that. Naught but what I expect can be easily remedied. But it appears
that when Gilli attempted to follow his daughter to Greenland, last
fall, he suffered a shipwreck and the loss of much valuable property,
barely escaping with his life. From this he drew the rash conclusion
that his daughter had become a misfortune to him, as some foreknowing
woman had once said she would. And he declared that since the maiden
preferred her poorer kinsfolk in Greenland, she might stay with them;
and--"
The words burst rapturously from Helga's lips: "And he disowned me?"
Thorir stared at her in astonishment. "Yes," he said, pityingly.
It was just as well that he had not attempted a longer answer, for he
never would have finished it. Madness seemed suddenly to fall upon the
ship. In the face of her disinheritance, the shield-maiden was radiant.
Down in the waist of the ship, two youths who had caught the words threw
up their hats with cheers. Leif Ericsson himself laughed loudly, and
snapped his fingers in derision.
"A mighty revenge!" he said. "My kinswoman could have received no
greater kindness at the churl's hands. Could she have accomplished it by
a dagger-thrust, I doubt not that she would have let his base blood run
from her veins long ere this."
He turned to where Helga stood watching him, her heart in her eyes, and
pulled her toward him and kissed her.
"You chose between honor and riches, kinswoman," he said, "but while
there is a ring in my pouch you shall never lack property; you have
behaved like a true Norse maiden, and I am free now to say that I honor
you for it. Go the way your heart desires, without further hindrance."
Helga stayed to press his hand to her cheek; then, before them all,
without a thought of shame, she went the way that ended in her lover's
arms.
They stood side by side in the gilded prow, and he kissed her eyes twice
for every tear they had shed; and he kissed her mouth thrice three
times, and not a man in the whole world rose up to prevent him. Side by
side, they stood in the flying bow, a divinely modelled figure-head,
gilded by the light of love.
CONCLUSION
As the sun's last beams were fading from the mountain tops, the
exploring vessel dropped anchor before Eric's ship-sheds and the eager
groups that had gathered on the shore at the first signal. Not only
idlers made up the throng, but the Red One himself was there, and
Thorwald and every soul from Brattahlid; and with them half the
high-born men of Greenland, who had lived for the last month as Eric's
guests, that they might be on hand for this occasion. They shoved and
jostled each other like schoolboys, as they crowded down to meet the
first boat-load.
The ten sailors who stepped ashore were a prosperous looking band. Their
arms were full of queer pets; their pouches were stuffed with samples of
wood and samples of wheat, and with nuts and with raisins. All were
sleek and fat with a year's good living, and all jubilant with happiness
and a sense of their own importance. Even while their arms were clasping
their sweethearts' necks, they began to hint at their brave adventures
and to boast of the grain and the timber and the wine. The home-keepers
heard just enough to set their curiosity leaping and dancing with
eagerness for more. And each succeeding boat-load of burly heroes worked
their enthusiasm to a higher pitch.
Then, gradually, the song ran into a minor key, as Thorir's pitiful crew
landed upon the sand. Haggard and worn and almost too weak to walk, they
clung to the brawny arms of their rescuers; and the horrors of their
privations were written in pitiless letters on Gudrid's fair white face.
The rejoicing and laughter sank into wondering questions and pitiful
murmuring.
While Thorir told the Red One briefly of their sufferings, the throng
listened as to their favorite ballad, and shuddered and suffered with
him. Then, in words that still rang with joy and gratitude, Thorir told
of their rescue by Leif Ericsson.
Strongly speeding arrows need only aim to make them reach their target.
Flights of wildest enthusiasm had been going up on every side. Now
Thorir gave these a mark and an aim. Curiosity and triumph, pity and
rejoicing, all merged into one great impulse and rose in a passion of
hero-worship. Toward the boat that was bringing the Lucky One to land,
they turned, face and heart, and laid their homage at his feet. Never
had Greenland glaciers heard such a tumult of acclaim as when the throng
cheered and stamped and clashed their weapons.
It was a supreme moment. Leif's bronzed face was white, as he stood
waiting for the noise to subside that he might answer them. Yet never
had his bearing been statelier than when at last he stepped forward and
faced them.
"I give you many thanks for your favor, friends," he said, courteously.
"It is more than I could have expected, and I give you many thanks for
it. But I think it right to remind you that I am not one of those men
who trust in their own strength alone. What I have done I have been able
to do by the help of my God whom you reject. To Him I give the thanks
and the glory."
In that humility which is higher than pride, he raised the silver
crucifix from his breast and bent his head before it. Out of the hush
that followed, a man's voice rang strongly,--the voice of one of
Greenland's foremost chiefs.
"Hail to the God of Leif Ericsson! The God that helped him must be
all-powerful. Henceforth I will believe that He and no one else is the
only God. Hail to the Cross!"
Before he had finished, another voice had taken up the cry--and
another--and another; until there were not ten men who were not shouting
it over and over, in a delirium of excitement. Eric turned his face away
and made over his breast the hammer sign of Thor, but there was only
pride in his look when he turned back.
Leif stood motionless amid the tumult; looking upward with that strange
absent look, as though his eyes would pierce the clouds that veiled
Valhalla's walls and search for one beloved face among the warriors upon
the benches.
Under his breath he said to his English squire, "I pray God that Olaf
Trygvasson hears this now, and knows that I have been as faithful to him
in his death as I was in his life."
He did not feel it when Alwin bent and touched the scarlet cloak-hem
with his lips, nor did he hear the fervent murmur, "So faithful will I
be to you hereafter."
THE END