n. Once or twice we were a
full half-mile astern of her, and then gained with the chance of
the breeze. Once we might have thrown a line on board her, but had
none to heave. Then she gathered way and fled from us, even as we
thought we had her. It was just as if she knew that we chased her,
and would play with us. We almost lost heart at that time, for it
was sickening.

"The ship is bewitched," said Dalfin, and in truth we agreed with
him.

Why, and by whom, she had been set adrift thus, or what had
befallen her crew, we could not guess. Still, she was our only
hope, and we held on after her again. Neither Bertric nor myself
had the least thought of giving up, for we knew that the chances of
the breeze were all in our favour, so long as it came unsteadily as
now. And always, when it fell, we sculled fiercely and gained on
her, if only a little.

So another half hour passed, with its hopes and disappointments,
and then we were flying down on her with a breeze of our own, when
the end came. The wind shifted and I met it, and that shift did all
for us. It reached the ship, and took the clew of the sail inboard,
shaking and thundering, while the sheets lashed to and fro across
the deck. Then somewhere those sheets jammed and held fast, and as
if the canvas had been flattened in of set purpose, she luffed,
until with a great clap of the sail against the mast, the whole of
her upper canvas was aback, and she was hove to helplessly. Maybe
she was a furlong from us at the moment, and Bertric shouted.

"We have her," I cried, "if only all holds!"

"She will gather stern way directly," said Bertric, with set teeth.
"Then she will fall off again, and the sheets will get adrift."

We flew down on her, but we had been tricked so often before that
we hardly dared to hope. Now we were close to her bows, and we
heard the great yard creaking and straining, and the dull flapping
of the loose canvas of both tack and clew which had blown inboard.
The ship lurched and staggered under the uneasy strain, but the
tackle held, and we had her. Bertric went to our halliards and
lowered the sail as I luffed alongside, and then Dalfin had gripped
the rail between two of the shining shields. There was no sea
beyond a harmless ripple as yet, and we dropped aft to where a
cleat was set for the boats on her quarter, and made fast.

Then as we looked at one another, there came to me as it were a
breath from my lost home in far-off Caithness,