Weird Tales from Northern Seas | Page 5

gladly have given his life for one good grip of the
being who had so mercilessly torn from him his dearest in this world
and would fain have still more.
At three or four o'clock in the morning they saw coming upon them
through the darkness a breaker of such a height that at first Elias
thought they must be quite close ashore near the surf swell.
Nevertheless, he soon recognised it for what it really was--a huge
billow. Then it seemed to him as if there was a laugh over in the other
boat, and something said, "There goes thy boat, Elias!" He, foreseeing
the calamity, now cried aloud: "In Jesus' Name!" and then bade his sons
hold on with all their might to the withy-bands by the rowlocks when
the boat went under, and not let go till it was above the water again. He
made the elder of them go forward to Bernt; and himself held the
youngest close by his side, stroked him once or twice furtively down
the cheeks, and made sure that he had a good grip. The boat, literally

buried beneath the foaming roller, was lifted gradually up by the bows
and then went under. When it rose again out of the water, with the keel
in the air, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin lay alongside,
holding on by the withy-bands; but the third of the brothers was gone.
They had now first of all to get the shrouds on one side cut through, so
that the mast might come to the surface alongside instead of disturbing
the balance of the boat below; and then they must climb up on the
swaying bottom of the boat and stave in the key-holes, to let out the air
which kept the boat too high in the water, and so ease her. After great
exertions they succeeded, and Elias, who had got up on the top first,
now helped the other two up after him.
There they sat through the long dark winter night, clinging
convulsively on by their hands and knees to the boat's bottom, which
was drenched by the billows again and again.
After the lapse of a couple of hours died Martin, whom his father had
held up the whole time as far as he was able, of sheer exhaustion, and
glided down into the sea. They had tried to cry for help several times,
but gave it up at last as a bad job.
Whilst they two thus sat all alone on the bottom of the boat, Elias said
to Bernt he must now needs believe that he too was about to be "along
o' mother!"[10] but that he had a strong hope that Bernt, at any rate,
would be saved, if he only held out like a man. Then he told him all
about the Draug, whom he had struck below the neck with the
Kvejtepig, and how it had now revenged itself upon him, and certainly
would not forbear till it was "quits with him."
It was towards nine o'clock in the morning when the grey dawn began
to appear. Then Elias gave to Bernt, who sat alongside him, his silver
watch with the brass chain, which he had snapped in two in order to
drag it from beneath his closely buttoned jacket. He held on for a little
time longer, but, as it got lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face was
deadly pale, his hair too had parted here and there, as often happens
when death is at hand, and his skin was chafed off his hands from
holding on to the keel. The son understood now that his father was
nearly at the last gasp, and tried, so far as the pitching and tossing
would allow it, to hold him up; but when Elias marked it, he said, "Nay,
look to thyself, Bernt, and hold on fast. I go to mother--in Jesus'
Name!" and with that he cast himself down headlong from the top of

the boat.
Every one who has sat on the keel of a boat long enough knows that
when the sea has got its own it grows much calmer, though not
immediately. Bernt now found it easier to hold on, and still more of
hope came to him with the brightening day. The storm abated, and,
when it got quite light, it seemed to him that he knew where he was,
and that it was outside his own homestead, Kvalholm, that he lay
driving.
He now began again to cry for help, but his chief hope was in a current
which he knew bore landwards at a place where a headland broke in
upon the surge, and there the water was calmer. And he did, in fact,
drive closer and closer in, and came