Thelma | Page 5

and looked around him for the singer. There was no one visible. The amber streaks in the sky were leaping into crimson flame; the Fjord glowed like the burning lake of Dante's vision; one solitary sea-gull winged its graceful, noiseless flight far above, its white pinions shimmering like jewels as it crossed the radiance of the heavens. Other sign of animal life there was none. Still the hidden voice rippled on in a stream of melody, and the listener stood amazed and enchanted at the roundness and distinctness of every note that fell from the lips of the unseen vocalist.
"A woman's voice," he thought; "but where is the woman?"
Puzzled, he looked to the right and left, then out to the shining Fjord, half expecting to see some fisher-maiden rowing along, and singing as she rowed, but there was no sign of any living creature. While he waited, the voice suddenly ceased, and the song was replaced by the sharp grating of a keel on the beach. Turning in the direction of this sound, he perceived a boat being pushed out by invisible hands towards the water's edge from a rocky cave, that jutted upon the Fjord, and, full of curiosity, he stepped towards the arched entrance, when,--all suddenly and unexpectedly,--a girl sprang out from the dark interior, and standing erect in her boat, faced the intruder. A girl of about nineteen, she seemed, taller than most women,--with a magnificent uncovered mass of hair, the color of the midnight sunshine, tumbled over her shoulders, and flashing against her flushed cheeks and dazzlingly fair skin. Her deep blue eyes had an astonished and certainly indignant expression in them, while he, utterly unprepared for such a vision of loveliness at such a time and in such a place, was for a moment taken aback and at a loss for words. Recovering his habitual self- possession quickly, however, he raised his hat, and, pointing to the boat, which was more than half way out of the cavern, said simply--
"May I assist you?"
She was silent, eyeing him with a keen glance which had something in it of disfavor and suspicion.
"I suppose she doesn't understand English," he thought, "and I can't speak a word of Norwegian. I must talk by signs."
And forthwith he went through a labored pantomime of gesture, sufficiently ludicrous in itself, yet at the same time expressive of his meaning. The girl broke into a laugh--a laugh of sweet amusement which brought a thousand new sparkles of light into her lovely eyes.
"That is very well done," she observed graciously, speaking English with something of a foreign accent. "Even the Lapps would understand you, and they are very stupid, poor things!"
Half vexed by her laughter, and feeling that he was somehow an object of ridicule to this tall, bright-haired maiden, he ceased his pantomimic gestures abruptly and stood looking at her with a slight flush of embarrassment on his features.
"I know your language," she resumed quietly, after a brief pause, in which she had apparently considered the stranger's appearance and general bearing. "It was rude of me not to have answered you at once. You can help me if you will. The keel has caught among the pebbles, but we can easily move it between us." And, jumping lightly out of her boat, she grasped its edge firmly with her strong white hands, exclaiming gaily, as she did so, "Push!"
Thus adjured, he lost no time in complying with her request, and, using his great strength and muscular force to good purpose, the light little craft was soon well in the water, swaying to and fro as though with impatience to be gone. The girl sprang to her seat, discarding his eagerly proffered assistance, and, taking both oars, laid them in their respective rowlocks, and seemed about to start, when she paused and asked abruptly--
"Are you a sailor?"
He smiled. "Not I! Do I remind you of one?"
"You are strong, and you manage a boat as though you were accustomed to the work. Also you look as if you had been at sea."
"Rightly guessed!" he replied, still smiling; "I certainly HAVE been at sea; I have been coasting all about your lovely land. My yacht went across to Seiland this afternoon."
She regarded him more intently, and observed, with the critical eye of a woman, the refined taste displayed in his dress, from the very cut of his loose travelling coat, to the luxurious rug of fine fox- shins, that lay so carelessly cast on the shore at a little distance from him. Then she gave a gesture of hauteur and half-contempt.
"You have a yacht? Oh! then you are a gentleman. You do nothing for your living?"
"Nothing, indeed!" and he shrugged his shoulders with a mingled air of weariness and self-pity, "except one thing--I live!"
"Is that hard