Though they all were filled with punch-begotten Dutch courage, not
one of them but Krelis--as they stood together looking out over what
should have been marsh-land and what was angry sea--thought even for
a moment of getting homeward before daylight should come again and
the gale should break away. And even Krelis would not have been for
facing such danger at an ordinary time: but just then his soul and body
were in commotion, and over the black stormy water he saw visions of
Geert beckoning him to those red lips of hers, and firing him with the
sparkle of her flashing eyes.
"It's a bit of sea," he said lightly, "but if one of you will lend a
hand at an oar with me we'll manage it easily. Just here it's baddish.
But a stiff pull of a hundred yards will fetch us into smoother water
under the lee of the graveyard, and beyond that we'll be a little under
the lee of the Kerkehof--and then another spurt of stiff pulling will
fetch us home. Geert will steer, and we can count on her to steer well.
I wouldn't have risked it with Marretje at the tiller--but I've got
another sort of a wife now. Which of you'll come along?"
There was a dead silence at that, for every one of the young fellows
standing there knew that to take a boat out into that water meant a
fight for life at every inch of the way.
"Well, since you're all so modest," Krelis went on with a laugh, "I'll
pick out big Jan here to pull with me--and no offence to the rest of
you, for we all know that not another man on Marken pulls so strong an
oar."
It was old Jan himself who told me this, and he said that when Krelis
chose him that way there was nothing for him to do but to say that he'd
go. But he said that he went pale at the thought of what was before
him, and would have given anything in the world to get out of the job.
All the others spoke up against their trying it; and that, he said,
while it scared him still more--for they all, in spite of the punch
that was in them, spoke very seriously--helped him to go ahead. It
would be something to talk about afterward, he thought, that he had
done what everybody else was afraid to do. And when the others found
that he and Krelis were not to be shaken, they set themselves to
bringing a strong boat across from the other side of the village and
getting it into the water--in a smooth place under the lee of one of
the houses--and lashing a lantern fast into its bows.
When Krelis and Jan went back to the tavern to fetch Geert there was
another outcry. All the women got around Geert and declared that she
should not go. But Geert was ready always for any bit of daredeviltry,
and the readier when anybody tried to hold her back from it--and then
the way that Krelis looked at her would have taken her with him through
the very gates of hell. She only laughed at the other women, and made
them help her to put on the oil-skin hat and coat that Krelis fetched
for her to keep her dry against the pelting rain. And she laughed still
louder when she was rigged out in that queer dress--and what with her
sparkling eyes and her splendid colour was so bewitching under the big
hat that Krelis snatched a kiss from her and swore that at last he had
a wife just to his mind.
All the company, muffled in shawls and cloaks, went along with them to
the water-side to see them start; and because there was no commotion
in the quiet nook where the boat was lying, and the darkness hid the
tumbling waves beyond, most of them thought that the only danger ahead
for Geert and the others was a thorough drenching--and were disposed to
make fun of this queer wedding-journey on which they were bound. But
the young men who had launched the boat knew better, and they tried
once more to make Krelis give over his purpose--or, at least, to wait
until the moon should rise a little and thin the clouds. And all the
answer that they got was a laugh from Geert and a joking invitation
from Krelis to come across to the Kesbeurt in the morning and join him
in a glass of grog.
Krelis was to pull stroke, and so big Jan got into the boat ahead of
him--with his heart fairly down in his boots, he told me--and then
Krelis got in; and last of all Geert took her seat in the stern, and
as she gripped the tiller steadily gave the order to shove off. With
a strong push the young men gave the boat a start that sent it well
out from the shore, and then the oars bit into the water and they were
under way.
One of the old women whom I talked with was of the wedding-party, and
down there by the shore that night, and she told me that they all
cheered and laughed for a minute as the boat with the lantern in her
bows shot off from the land. The thought of danger, she said, was quite
out of their minds. Right in front of them, less than a quarter of a
mile away, they saw the lights of the houses in the Kesbeurt shining
brightly, and plainly setting the course for Geert to steer; and they
knew that the two strongest men on Marken were at the oars. What they
all were laughing about, she said, was that anybody should be going
from the one village to the other in a boat--and that it should be a
wedding-journey, too!
But it was only for a moment that their laughter lasted. The instant
that the boat was out of the sheltered smooth water they all knew that
not by one chance in a thousand could she live to fetch across. By the
light of the lantern fixed in her bows they saw plainly the wild tumult
of the sea around her--that caught her and seemed to stand her almost
straight on end as Geert held her strongly against the oncoming waves.
The old woman said that a thrill of horror ran through them all as they
realized what certainly must happen. By a common impulse down they
all went on their knees on the sodden ground, with the rain pelting
them--and she heard some one cry out in the darkness: "Old Jaap's curse
is upon them! May God pity and help them and have mercy on their souls!"
[Illustration: OLD JAAP]