not break. Only
there was the little creaking of the yard and the light beating of
the idle sail against the mast as the ship rolled and swung to the
swell. Some little draught of wind, or the send of the waves, had
set her bows to it, and she rode the water like a sea bird at rest.

Gerda came at a word when all was ready, and stood beside us with
clasped hands. And so for a little time we four stood with a space
between us and the head of that rough sea bier, and over against us
beyond it the open gangway and the heaving, gray water, which now
and then rose slowly and evenly almost to the deck level and again
sank away. It was almost as if, when the end had come, that we
waited for some signal which there was none to give.

What those two of the other faith had said to one another I do not
know; but for a little time they stood with bare, bent heads as in
one accord, and I saw them make their holy sign on their breasts
before they moved. Then Bertric signed to me that I should help him
lift the inboard end of the planking, and we stepped forward
together and bent to do so. Even as my hands touched the wood there
came a sudden rushing, and I felt a new lift of the ship, and into
the open gangway poured the head of a great, still wave, flooding
the deck around our feet, and hiding in its smother of white foam
and green water that which lay before us, so that we must needs
start back hastily. The ship lurched and righted herself, and the
wave was gone. Gone, too, was the old king--without help of ours.
The sea he loved had taken him, drawing him softly to itself with
the ebb of the water from the deck, and covering the place
alongside, where I had feared for Gerda to see the dull splash and
eddy of the end, with a pall of snow-white foam.

For a long moment we stood motionless, half terrified. Neither
before this had any sea come on board since we lowered the gunwale
nor did any come afterward. Gerda clutched my arm, swaying with the
ship, and then she cried in a strange voice:

"It is Aegir! Aegir himself who has taken him!"

That was in my mind also, and no wonder. The happening seemed
plainly beyond the natural. I turned to Gerda, fearing lest she
should be over terrified, and saw her staring with wide eyes into
the mists across that sea grave, wondering; and then of a sudden
she pointed, and cried once more:

"Look! what is yonder? Look!"

Then we all saw what she gazed at. As it were about a ship's length