ch he had been out all night,
unconscious of the grim face and cruel eye that watched him from the
thicket above with a look that boded him no good. Just then, two men
came pulling round the point behind which his boat was moored, and one
of them said to the other, loud enough to be heard by the hidden watcher
overhead, though not to wake the sleeper:

"There's a rich Englishman come into Langeness, in his yacht, and he's
offered a big reward to any man that'll find out what those letters are
that are carved on the sea-king's grave."

"Why don't he offer a reward for the moon?" laughed the other. "Does he
think any money can tempt men to go right into a whirlpool that would
swallow the stoutest boat in these seas like a biscuit?"

"But they say that at the flood-tide you may go through it without harm,
if you start just at the right moment."

"Aye! _if_ you do. But who would be fool enough to risk it?"

Then they passed on, and their voices were lost in the distance.

The moment their boat was out of sight, behind the rocks, a wild face
peered through the matted boughs overhead, and a bulky figure rose
stealthily from the bushes and crept downward toward the sleeping boy,
with a long knife in its hand. One quick slash cut the mooring-rope, and
the boat slowly drifted seaward with its slumbering occupant.

"The current sets straight for the whirlpool," muttered the ruffian,
with a cruel laugh, "and, when he's missed, they'll think the _reward_
tempted him. I'm quits at last with his father for the thrashing that he
gave me!"

Only a few miles from the spot, a small rocky islet had sunk down into
the sea ages ago, creating by its fall one of the most dangerous
whirlpools in northern waters, known in Norway as the "Well of
Tuftiloe."

In the midst of the whirl stood up one dark, pillar-shaped crag, the
sole remnant of the lost islet, which the Norsemen, believing it to be
some ancient hero's tomb, called "The Sea King's Grave." And, in fact,
passing yachtsmen had seen upon it from a distance, through their
telescopes, traces of rude carving, and something that looked like the
half-effaced letters of an old Runic inscription. But although the
whirlpool, like its big brother, the maelstrom, was believed to be
passable at certain states of the tide, no one had ever dared to try.

The quickening motion of the current, as it bore the light boat swiftly
along, roused the boy at last, but it was too late. Being half as