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Charles Whistler - "A King's Comrade"

Maria Thompson Daviess - "Andrew the Glad"

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Havelok The Dane written by Charles Whistler

C >> Charles Whistler >> Havelok The Dane




Then my father spoke to them, saying, "I do not know if this Viking will
pass us by as too hard a nut to crack, seeing that he knows of us
already; but if he does not, it will be of no use our trying to fight
him, as you can see. I would not waste your lives for naught. But it may
be that a show of force will keep him off, so we will wait under arms
until we are sure what he will do."

Then the men broke out, saying that they had beaten this man before with
him as leader, and they were in no mind to give up without a fight.

"Well, then," my father answered, "it is plain that you will back me,
and so I will call on you if there is need or chance. But we have the
women folk to think of now, and we must not risk aught."

Now the longship held on her course steadily, never shifting her helm
for so much as a point. In half an hour or so we must be alongside one
another, at this rate, and that Arngeir did not altogether like the look
of, for it would seem as if she meant to find out all about us at least.
There was some little sea running, and it might be thought easier to
board us on the lee side, therefore. We could not get away from her in
any way, for even now, while she was closer hauled than we, she kept
pace with us, and had she paid off to the same course as ourselves, she
would have left us astern in a very short time.

Presently a man swarmed up her rigging in order to look down on our
decks, and as he went up, my father bade our men crawl over to windward,
so that he should see all one gunwale lined with men, and so think that
both were, and deem that we were setting a trap for them in order to
entice them alongside by pretending to be hardly manned. At the same
time, he sent the ladies and children into the cabin, so that they might
not be seen.

That did not please Havelok at all, for he seemed to scent a fight in
the air, and wanted weapons, that he might stand beside the other men,
asking for an axe for choice. It was all that I could do to quiet him by
saying that if there was any need of him I would call him, but that just
now we thought the Vikings would go away if they saw many warriors on
deck. Which indeed was all that we hoped, but he thought that would
spoil sport, and so hastened into the shelter.

After that there fell a silence on us, for at any moment now we might be
hailed by the other ship. And when we were but a bow shot apart the hail
came. The two vessels were then broadside on to each other, we a little
ahead, if anything. My father was steering now, fully armed, and Arngeir
was beside him with myself. I had the big shield wherewith one guards
the helmsman if arrows are flying.

The Viking bade us strike sail, and let him come alongside, but my
father made no answer. Still we held on, and the Viking paid off a
little, as though he were not so sure if it were wise to fall on us, as
we showed no fear of him.

Then my father spoke to Arngeir in a stern voice that I had heard only
when we met this same ship before.

"This will not last long. If there is one chance for us, it is to run
him down and it may be done. Our ship will stand the blow, for these
longships are but eggshells beside her. Pass the word for the men to
shoot the steersman when I give the word. Then they must run forward,
lest the Vikings climb over the bows as we strike her."

Arngeir's eyes flashed at that, and at once he went to the men, and
there was a click and rattle as the arrows went to string, and they
gathered themselves together in readiness to leap up when the word came.
There seemed every chance that we should be upon the longship before
they knew what we were about, for we had the weather gauge.

Now the Viking hailed again, and again bore up for us a little, whereat
my father smiled grimly, for it helped his plan. And this time, as there
was no answer, his men sent an arrow or two on board, which did no harm.

"It is plain that we are to be taken," my father said on that, "so we
will wait no longer. Stand by, men, and one lucky shot will do all. Shoot!"

The helm went up as he spoke, and the men leaped to their feet, raining
arrows round the two men who were at the helm, and down on the Viking we
swept with a great cheer.

But in a moment there were four men on her after deck, and whether the
first helmsman was shot I cannot say; but I think not, for quickly as we
had borne down on her she was ready, rushing away from us, instead of
luffing helplessly, as we had expected. It would almost have seemed that
our move had been looked for.

Ten more minutes passed while we exchanged arrow flights, and then the
longship had so gained on us that she struck sail and waited for us with
her long oars run out and ready.

"That is all we can do," said my father, with a sort of groan. "Put up
your weapons, men, for it is no good fighting now."

They did so, growling; and as we neared the longship, her oars took the
water, and she flew alongside of us, and a grappling hook flung deftly
from her bows caught our after gunwale, and at once she dropped astern,
and swung to its chain as to a tow line. We were not so much as bidden
to strike sail now, and the Vikings began to crowd forward in order to
board us by the stern, as the grappling chain was hove short by their
windlass.

"Hold on," my father cried to them "we give up. Where is your chief?"

Now the men were making way for him when a strange thing happened. Out
of the after cabin ran Havelok when he heard that word, crying that it
was not the part of good warriors to give up while they could wield
sword--words that surely he had learned from Gunnar, his father. And
after him came his mother, silent, and terrified lest he should be harmed.

Havelok ran up the steps to my father, and the queen followed. I have
said that there was a little sea running, and this made the ships jerk
and strain at the chain that held them together fiercely, now that it
was so short. And even as the queen came to the top step, where there
was no rail, for the steps were not amidships, but alongside the
gunwale, one of these jerks came; and in a moment she was in the sea,
and in a moment also Arngeir was after her, for he was a fine swimmer.

The Vikings cried out as they saw this, but the poor queen said no word,
nor did she ever rise again after the first time. It is likely that she
was drawn under the longship at once.

So for a little while there was no talk of terms or fighting, but all
held their breath as they watched to see if the queen floated alongside
anywhere; but there was only Arngeir, who swam under the lee of the
Viking, and called to her men for guidance. They threw him a rope's end
as he came to the stern, and he clung to it for a little while, hoping
to see the flash of a white hood that the queen wore, over the white
wave crests: but at last he gave up, and the Vikings hauled him on
board, praising him for his swimming, as he had on his mail.

Then the chief turned to my father, and spoke to him across the few
fathoms of water that were between the ships.

"We meet again, Grim, as time comes round; and now I have a mind to let
you go, though I have that old grudge against you, for I think that your
wife is loss enough."

"Not my wife, Arnvid, but a passenger--one whom I would not have lost
for all that you can take from me."

"Well, I am glad it is no worse. But it seems that you are in ballast.
How comes it that you have no cargo for me, for you owe me one?"

Then my father told him shortly that he had fled from Hodulf; and all
those doings were news to the Viking, so that they talked in friendly
wise, while the men listened, and the ships crept on together down the wind.

But when all was told, save of the matter of Havelok, and who the lost
lady was, the Viking laughed shortly, and said, "Pleasant gossip, Grim,
but not business. What will you give us to go away in peace? I do not
forget that you all but ran us down just now, and that one or two of us
have arrows sticking in us which came from your ship. But that first was
a good bit of seamanship, and there is not much harm from the last."

"Well," said my father, "it seems to me that you owe me a ship, for it
is certain that I once had that one, and gave her back to you."

The Viking laughed.

"True enough, and therefore I give you back your ship now, and we are
quits. But I am coming on board to see what property I can lift."

My father shrugged his shoulders, and turned away, and at once the
Vikings hauled on the chain until their dragon head was against our
quarter, when the chief and some twenty of his men came on board. The
way in which they took off the hatches without staying to question where
they should begin told a tale of many a like plundering.

Then, I do not know how it was rightly, for I was aft with my father,
there began a quarrel between the Vikings and our men; and though both
Grim and the chief tried to stop it, five of our few were slain
outright, and three more badly hurt before it was ended. The rest of our
crew took refuge on the fore deck, and there bided after that. The whole
fray was over in a few minutes, and it seemed that the Vikings half
expected somewhat of the sort.

Then they took all the linen and woollen goods, and our spare sails, and
all the arms and armour from the men and from the chests to their own
ship. Only they left my father and Arngeir their war gear, saying that
it were a shame to disarm two brave men.

Then the chief said, "Little cargo have you, friend Grim, and therefore
I am the more sure that you have store of money with you. Even flight
from Hodulf would not prevent you from taking that wherewith to trade.
So I must have it; and it rests with you whether we tear your ship to
splinters in hunting for your hiding place or not."

"I suppose there is no help for it, but I will say that the most of what
I have is not mine," said my father.

"Why, what matter? When one gives gold into the hands of a seafarer, one
has to reckon with such chances as this. You must needs hand it over."

So, as there was naught else to do, Grim brought out the jarl's heavy
bag, and gave it to the chief, who whistled to himself as he hefted it.

"Grim," he said, "for half this I would have let you go without sending
a man on board. What is this foolishness? You must have known that."

"The gold is not mine," my father answered; "it was my hope that you
would have been content with the cargo."

"Well, I have met with an honest man for once," the Viking said; and he
called his men, and they cast off and left us.

But we were in no happy plight when he had gone away to the eastward on
his old course. Half our men were gone, for the wounded were of no use,
and the loss of the queen weighed heavily on us. And before long it
began to blow hard from the north, and we had to shorten sail before
there was real need, lest it should be too much for us few presently, as
it certainly would have been by the time that darkness fell, for the
gale strengthened.

Then, added to all this, there was trouble in the cabin under the after
deck, for since his mother was lost, Havelok had spoken no word. I had
brought him down to my mother from the deck, and had left him with her,
hoping that he did not know what had happened; but now he was in a high
fever, and sorely ill. Perhaps he would have been so in any case, after
the long days of Hodulf's cruelty, but he had borne them well. A child
is apt, however, to give up, as it were, suddenly.

So, burdened with trouble, we drove before the gale, and the only
pleasant thing was to see how the good ship behaved in it, while at
least we were on our course all the time. Therefore, one could not say
that there was any danger; and but for these other things, none would
have thought much of wind or sea, which were no worse than we had
weathered many a time before. We had sea room, and no lee shore to fear,
and the ship was stanch, and no sailor can ask for more than that.


CHAPTER V. STORM AND SHIPWRECK.

The gale held without much change through the night, and then with
morning shifted a few points to the westward, which was nothing to
complain of. The sea rose, and a few rain squalls came up and passed;
but they had no weight in them, and did not keep the waves down as a
steady fall will. And all day long it was the same, and the ship fled
ever before it. There was no thought now of reaching any port we might
wish, but least of all did we think of making the Lindsey shore, which
lies open to the north and east. When the gale broke, we must find
harbour where we could; and indeed; to my father at this time all ports
were alike, as refuge from Hodulf. When darkness came again one of the
wounded men died, and Havelok was yet ill in the after cabin, so that my
mother was most anxious for him. The plunging ship was no place for a
sick child.

Now it was not possible for us to tell how far we had run since we had
parted from the Viking, and all we knew was that we had no shore to fear
with the wind as it was, and therefore nothing but patience was needed.
But in the night came a sudden lull in the gale that told of a change at
hand, and in half an hour it was blowing harder than ever from the
northeast, and setting us down to the English coast fast, for we could
do naught but run before such a wind. It thickened up also, and was very
dark even until full sunrise, so that one could hardly tell when the sun
was above the sea's rim.

I crept from the fore cabin about this time, after trying in vain to
sleep, and found the men sheltering under the break of the deck and
looking always to leeward. Two of them were at the steering oar with my
father, for Arngeir was worn out, and I had left him in the cabin,
sleeping heavily in spite of the noise of waves and straining planking.
Maybe he would have waked in a moment had that turmoil ceased.

It was of no use trying to speak to the men without shouting in their
ears, and getting to windward to do that, moreover, and so I looked
round to see if there was any change coming. But all was grey overhead,
and a grey wall of rain and flying drift from the wave tops was all
round us, blotting out all things that were half a mile from us, if
there were anything to be blotted out. It always seems as if there must
be somewhat beyond a thickness of any sort at sea. But there was one
thing that I did notice, and that was that the sea was no longer grey,
as it had been yesterday, but was browner against the cold sky, while
the foam of the following wave crests was surely not so white as it had
been, and at this I wondered.

Then I crawled aft and went to my father and asked him what he thought
of the wind and the chance of its dropping. He had had the lead going
for long now.

"We are right off the Humber mouth, to judge by the colour of the
water," he told me, "or else off the Wash, which is more to the south. I
cannot tell which rightly, for we have run far, and maybe faster than I
know. If only one could see--"

There he stopped, and I knew enough to understand that we were in some
peril unless a shift of wind came very soon, since the shore was under
our lee now, if by good luck we were not carried straight into the great
river itself. So for an hour or more I watched, and all the time it
seemed that hope grew less, for the sea grew shorter, as if against
tide, and ever its colour was browner with the mud of the Trent and her
sisters.

Presently, as I clung to the rail, there seemed to grow a new sound over
and amid all those to which I had become used--as it were a low
roaring that swelled up in the lulls, and sank and rose again. And I
knew what it was, and held up my hand to my father, listening, and he
heard also. It was the thunder of breakers on a sandy coast to leeward.

He put his whistle to his lips and called shrilly, and the men saw him
if they could not hear, and sprang up, clawing aft through the water
that flooded the waist along the rail.

"Breakers to leeward, men," he cried "we must wear ship, and then shall
clear them. We shall be standing right into Humber after that, as I think."

Arngeir heard the men trampling, if not the whistle, and he was with us
directly, and heard what was to be done.

"It is a chance if the yard stands it," he said, looking aloft.

"Ay, but we cannot chance going about in this sea, and we are too short
of men to lower and hoist again. Listen!"

Arngeir did so, and heard for the first time the growing anger of the
surf on the shore, and had no more doubt. We were then running with the
wind on the port quarter, and it was useless to haul closer to the wind
on that tack, whereas if we could wear safely we should be leaving the
shore at once by a little closer sailing.

"Ran is spreading her nets," said Arngeir, "but if all holds, she will
have no luck with her fishing." [6]

Then we manned the main sheet and the guys from the great yards, but we
were all too few for the task, which needed every man of the fifteen
that we had sailed with. There was the back stay to be set up afresh on
the weather quarter for the new tack also, and three men must see to that.

We watched my father's hand for the word, and steadily sheeted home
until all seemed to be going well. But the next moment there was a crash
and a cry, and we were a mastless wreck, drifting helplessly. Maybe some
flaw of wind took us as the head of the great sail went over, but its
power was too much for the men at guys and back stay, and they had the
tackle torn through their hands. The mast snapped six feet above the
deck, smashing the gunwales as it fell forward and overboard, but
hurting none of us.

Then a following sea or two broke over the stern, and I was washed from
the poop, for I had been at the sheet, down to the deck, and there saved
myself among the fallen rigging, half drowned. One of the men was washed
overboard at the same time, but a bight of the rigging that was over the
side caught him under the chin, and his mates hauled him on board again
by the head, as it were. He was wont to make a jest of it afterward,
saying that he was not likely to be hanged twice, but he had a wry neck
from that day forward.

No more seas came over us, for the wreck over the bows brought us head
to wind, though we shipped a lot of water across the decks as she rolled
in the sea. Then we rode to the drag of the fallen sail for a time, and
it seemed quiet now that there was no noise of wind screaming in rigging
above us. But all the while the thunder of the breakers grew nearer and
plainer.

I bided where I was, for the breath was knocked out of me for the
moment. I saw my father lash the helm, and then he and the rest got the
two axes that hung by the cabin door, and came forward with them. The
mast was pounding our side in a way that would start the planking before
long, and it must be cut adrift, and by that time I could join him.

When that was done, and it did not take long, we cleared the anchor and
cable and let go, for it was time. The sound of the surf was drowning
all else. But the anchor held, and the danger was over for the while,
and as one might think altogether; but the tide was running against the
gale, and what might happen when it turned was another matter.

Now we got the sail on deck again, and unlaced it from the yard, setting
that in place with some sort of rigging, ready to be stepped as a mast
if the wind shifted to any point that might help us off shore.

It may be thought how we watched that one cable that held us from the
waves and the place where they broke, for therein lay our only chance,
and we longed for the clear light that comes after rain, that we might
see the worst, at least, if we were to feel it. But the anchor held, and
presently we lost the feeling of a coming terror that had been over us,
the utmost peril being past. My father went to the after cabin now, and
though the poor children were bruised with the heavy rolling of the ship
as she came into the wind, they were all well save Havelok, and he had
fallen asleep in my mother's arms at last.

With the turn of the tide, which came about three hours after midday,
the clouds broke, and slowly the land grew out of the mists until we
could see it plainly, though it was hardly higher than the sea that
broke over it in whirling masses of spindrift. By-and-by we could see
far-off hills beyond wide-stretching marshlands that looked green and
rich across yellow sandhills that fringed the shore. And from them we
were not a mile, and at their feet were such breakers as no ship might
win through, though, if we might wait until they were at rest, the level
sand was good for beaching at the neap tides. For we were well into
Humber mouth, and to the northward of us, across the yellow water, was
the long point of Spurn, and the ancient port of Ravenspur, with its
Roman jetties falling into decay under the careless hand of the Saxon,
under its shelter. There was no port on this southern side of the
Humber, though farther south was Tetney Haven and again Saltfleet, to
which my father had been, but neither in nor out of them might a vessel
get in a northeast gale.

I have said that this clearness came with the turn of the tide, and now
that began to flow strongly, setting in with the wind with more than its
wonted force, for the northwest shift of the gale had kept it from
falling, as it always will on this coast. That, of course, I learned
later, but it makes plain what happened next. Our anchor began to drag
with the weight of both tide and wind, and that was the uttermost of our
dread.

Slowly it tore through its holding, and as it were step by step at
first, and once we thought it stopped when we had paid out all the
cable. But wind and sea were too strong, and presently again we saw the
shore marks shifting, and we knew that there was no hope. The ship must
touch the ground sooner or later, and then the end would come with one
last struggle in the surf, and on shore was no man whose hand might be
stretched to drag a spent man to the land, if he won through. It would
have seemed less lonely had one watched us, but I did not know then that
no pity for the wrecked need be looked for from the marshmen of the
Lindsey shore. There was not so much as a fisher's boat of wicker and
skins in sight on the sandhills, where one might have looked to see some
drawn up.

Now my father went to the cabin and told my mother that things were at
their worst, and she was very brave.

"If you are to die at this time, husband," she said, "it is good that I
shall die with you. Better it is, as I think, than a sickness that comes
to one and leaves the other. But after that you will go to the place of
Odin, to Valhalla; but I whither?"

Then spoke little Withelm, ever thoughtful, and now not at all afraid.

"If Freya wants not a sailor's wife who is willing to fight the waves
with Grim, my father, it will be strange."

My mother was wont to say that this saying of the child's did much to
cheer her at that time, but there is little place for a woman in the old
faiths. So she smiled at him, and that made him bold to speak of what he
had surely been thinking since the storm began.

"I suppose that Aegir is wroth because we made no sacrifice to him
before we set sail. I think that I would cast the altar stones to him,
that he may know that we meant to do so."

This sounds a child's thought only, and so it was; but it set my father
thinking, and in the end helped us out of trouble.

"I have heard," my father said, "that men in our case have thrown
overboard the high-seat pillars, and have followed them to shore safely.
We have none, but the stones are more sacred yet. Overboard they shall
go, and as the boat with them goes through the surf we may learn somewhat."

With that he hastened on deck, and told the men what he would do; and
they thought it a good plan, as maybe they would have deemed anything
that seemed to call for help from the strong ones of the sea. So they
got the boat ready to launch over the quarter, and the four stones,
being uncovered since the Vikings took our cargo, were easily got on
deck, and they were placed in the bottom of the boat, and steadied there
with coils of fallen rigging, so that they could not shift. They were
just a fair load for the boat. Then my father cried for help to the
Asir, bidding Aegir take the altar as full sacrifice; and when we had
done so we waited for a chance as a long wave foamed past us, and
launched the boat fairly on its back, so that she seemed to fly from our
hands, and was far astern in a moment.

Now we looked to see her make straight for the breakers, lift on the
first of them, and then capsize. That first line was not a quarter of a
mile from us now.

But she never reached them. She plunged away at first, heading right for
the surf, and then went steadily westward, and up the shore line outside
it, until she was lost to sight among the wild waves, for she was very
low in the water.

"Cheer up, men," my father said, as he saw that; "we are not ashore yet,
nor will be so long as the tide takes that current along shore. We shall
stop dragging directly."