Wulfric the Weapon Thane | Page 4

this might be.
"It is a bit of wreck," said one.
"Hardly, for the gale has not been wild enough to wreck a ship in the open; 'tis maybe lumber washed from a deck," answered another.
"It is a whale--no more or less."
"Nay," said old Kenulf; "it behaves not as a whale, and it comes too swiftly for wreckage."
"Would it were a dead whale. Then would be profit," said another man again, and after that the men were silent for a long while, having said all that could be guessed, and watched the speck that drew nearer and nearer, bearing down on us.
At last my father, ever keen of sight, said to me:
"This thing is not at the mercy of wind and wave. Rather has it the rise and fall of a boat well handled. Yet whence should one come in this heavy sea, after three days' gale?"
Even as he spoke, old Kenulf growled, half to himself, that to his thinking this was a boat coming, and handled, moreover, by men who knew their trade. Thereat some of the men laughed; for it seemed a thing impossible, both by reason of the stretch of wild sea that so small a craft as this--if it were indeed a boat--must have crossed, and because the sea was surely too heavy to let one live.
Yet in the end we saw that it was a boat, and that in her, moreover, was but one man, whose skill in handling her was more than ours, and greater than we could deem possible.
Whereupon some of us were afraid, seeing how wondrously the tiny craft came through the swift seas, and a man called out, giving voice to our fears:
"Surely yon man is a Finn and the wizard who has raised this storm to drown us; now are we lost!"
And I--who had listened eagerly to all the wild stories of the seamen, since first I was old enough to wander curiously over the ships from overseas that put into our haven on their way up the great rivers to Norwich, or Beccles, or other towns--knew that the Finns have powers more than mortal (though how or whence I know not) over wind and sea, often using their power to the hurt of others, and so looked to see the lines of a great squall, drawn as it were astern of the wizard's boat, whitening as it rushed upon us to sink us in sight of home.
But old Kenulf cried out on the man, saying:
"Rather is it one of the holy saints, and maybe the blessed Peter the fisherman himself," and he bared his gray head, crossing himself, as he looked eagerly to catch sight of the glory of light round the seafarer; and that rebuked my fears a little.
But squall or crown of light was there none. Only the brown waves, foam crested, which we feared not, and the gray light of the clouded sun that was nigh to setting.
My father heeded naught of this, but watched the boat, only wondering at the marvellous skill of her steersman. And when the boat was so near that it was likely that the eyes of the man were on us, my father raised his arm in the seaman's silent greeting, and I thought that the boatman returned the salute.
Now the course that the boat was holding when that signal passed would have taken her wide of us by half a cable's length, but she was yet so far distant that but a little change would bring her to us. Some sort of sail she seemed to have, but it was very small and like nothing I had ever seen, though it was enough to drive her swiftly and to give her steering way before the wind. Until my father signed to him the man seemed to have no wish to near our ship, going on straight to what would be certain destruction amid the great breakers on our largest sand bar, and that made the men more sure that he was a wizard, and there were white faces enough among them.
"Now," said my father to me, "doubtless this is what was put in my mind when I felt I must watch. Had I not seen him, yon man would have been surely lost; for I think he cannot see the breakers from his boat," and again he signed to the boatman.
Then from the little craft rose a great, long-winged hawk that cried and hovered over it for a little, as if loth to leave it; and one man said, shrinking and pale, that it was the wizard's familiar spirit. But the wind caught the bird's long wings and drove it from the boat, and swiftly wheeling it must needs make for us, speeding down the wind with widespread, still pinions.
Then cried aloud