Penguin Island | Page 7

carpenter and I
have worked at many other trades as well. Let us to work."
Immediately he drew the holy man into an outhouse filled with all
things needful for fitting out a boat.
"That for you, father!"
And he placed on his shoulders the sail, the mast, the gaff, and the
boom.
Then, himself bearing a stem and a rudder with its screw and tiller, and
seizing a carpenter's bag full of tools, he ran to the shore, dragging the

holy man after him by his habit. The latter was bent, sweating, and
breathless, under the burden of canvas and wood.

IV. ST. MAEL'S NAVIGATION ON THE OCEAN OF ICE
The Devil, having tucked his clothes up to his arm-pits, dragged the
trough on the sand, and fitted the rigging in less than an hour.
As soon as the holy Mael had embarked, the vessel, with all its sails set,
cleft through the waters with such speed that the coast was almost
immediately out of sight. The old man steered to the south so as to
double the Land's End, but an irresistible current carried him to the
south-west. He went along the southern coast of Ireland and turned
sharply towards the north. In the evening the wind freshened. In vain
did Mael attempt to furl the sail. The vessel flew distractedly towards
the fabulous seas.
By the light of the moon the immodest sirens of the North came around
him with their hempen-coloured hair, raising their white throats and
their rose-tinted limbs out of the sea; and beating the water into foam
with their emerald tails, they sang in cadence:
Whither go'st thou, gentle Mael, In thy trough distracted? All distended
is thy sail Like the breast of Juno When from it gushed the Milky Way.
For a moment their harmonious laughter followed him beneath the stars,
but the vessel fled on, a hundred times more swiftly than the red ship of
a Viking. And the petrels, surprised in their flight, clung with their feet
to the hair of the holy man.
Soon a tempest arose full of darkness and groanings, and the trough,
driven by a furious wind, flew like a sea-mew through the mist and the
surge.
After a night of three times twenty-four hours the darkness was
suddenly rent and the holy man discovered on the horizon a shore more
dazzling than diamond. The coast rapidly grew larger, and soon by the

glacial light of a torpid and sunken sun, Mael saw, rising above the
waves, the silent streets of a white city, which, vaster than Thebes with
its hundred gates, extended as far as the eye could see the ruins of its
forum built of snow, its palaces of frost, its crystal arches, and its
iridescent obelisks.
The ocean was covered with floating ice-bergs around which swam
men of the sea of a wild yet gentle appearance. And Leviathan passed
by hurling a column of water up to the clouds.
Moreover, on a block of ice which floated at the same rate as the stone
trough there was seated a white bear holding her little one in her arms,
and Mael heard her murmuring in a low voice this verse of Virgil,
Incipe parve puer.
And full of sadness and trouble, the old man wept.
The fresh water had frozen and burst the barrel that contained it. And
Mael was sucking pieces of ice to quench his thirst, and his food was
bread dipped in dirty water. His beard and his hair were broken like
glass. His habit was covered with a layer of ice and cut into him at
every movement of his limbs. Huge waves rose up and opened their
foaming jaws at the old man. Twenty times the boat was filled by
masses of sea. And the ocean swallowed up the book of the Holy
Gospels which the apostle guarded with extreme care in a purple cover
marked with a golden cross.
Now on the thirtieth day the sea calmed. And lo! with a frightful
clamour of sky and waters a mountain of dazzling whiteness advanced
towards the stone vessel. Mael steered to avoid it, but the tiller broke in
his hands. To lessen the speed of his progress towards the rock he
attempted to reef the sails, but when he tried to knot the reef-points the
wind pulled them away from him and the rope seared his hands. He
saw three demons with wings of black skin having hooks at their ends,
who, hanging from the rigging, were puffing with their breath against
the sails.
Understanding from this sight that the Enemy had governed him in all

these things, he guarded himself by making the sign of the Cross.
Immediately a furious gust of wind filled with the noise of sobs and