He shook his head and sat buried in thought. Then he said: “It is no joy for a man to see the Spinners’ fingers, and few are they who see them. But I am granted that vision, though I would gladly not see it. But the faces of the Spinners I have never seen.”
Again he sat silent. Then he looked at his sons and nodded.
“Go now,” he said. “Seven of you will return. That is enough for you to know.”
His sons protested no longer, for it was as though a shyness had come over them in the old man’s presence; and so it was also with Orm and all his following. But as they rode away, the sons continued for some time to mutter bitterly against the old man and the strangeness of his ways.
“I should have liked to ask him how I would fare,” said Toke, “but I dared not.”
“I had the same thought,” said Olof Summerbird, “but I, too, lacked the courage.”
“It may be that his words were but empty talk,” said Orm, “though it is true that the old woman at Gröning, too, sometimes sees what is to be.”
“Only a man who does not know him could think his words empty talk,” said one of Sone’s sons who was riding beside them. “It will happen as he has foretold, for so it has always been. But by telling us this he has made it worse for us than he knows.”
“I think he is wiser than most men,” said Toke. “But is it not a comfort to you all to know that seven of you will return safe and sound?”
“Seven,” replied the other darkly, “but which seven? Now we brothers cannot have a merry moment until four of us are dead.”
“So much the merrier will that moment be,” said Orm; at which Sone’s sons grunted doubtfully.
When they had reached the ship and sent their horses home, Orm straightway set his men to repaint the dragon-head; for if their ship was to enjoy good luck, it was necessary that its dragon-head should gleam as redly as blood. They carried everything aboard, and each man took his place. At first Orm was unwilling to sacrifice a goat for luck on the voyage; but in this everyone opposed him, so that at last he yielded.
“You may be as Christian as you will,” said Toke, “but at sea the old customs are still the best; and if you do not comply with them, you may as well jump headfirst into the sea where the water is deepest.”
Orm agreed that there might be some truth in this, though he found it hard that the price of a goat should now be added to all that he had had to pay out for this voyage before it had yet begun.
At last all was ready; and as soon as the goat’s blood had streamed down the bows, they sailed out in fine weather with a good favorable wind. Ever since his boyhood Toke had known the waters as far east as Gotland, and he had undertaken to pilot the ship until they reached the Gotland Vi. Beyond, few knew how the waters ran; but they reckoned to be able to hire a pilot there to help them, for there were many pilots in Gotland.
Orm and Toke were both happy to be at sea again; it was as though many of the burdens that oppressed them ashore had suddenly fallen from them. When they sighted the coast of Lister in the distance, Toke said that the life of a skin-trader was, in truth, a hard one, but that now he felt once more as light of heart as when he had first sailed forth with Krok.
“I cannot understand why I have kept away from the sea for so long,” he said, “for a well-manned ship is the best of all things. It is good to sit contented ashore, and no man need be ashamed to do so; but a voyage to a far land, with booty awaiting a man and this smell in his nostrils, is as good a lot as could be desired, and a sure cure for age and sorrow. It is strange that we Northmen, who know this and are more skillful seamen than other men, sit at home as much as we do, when we have the whole world to plunder.”
“Perhaps,” said Orm, “some men prefer to grow old ashore rather than to risk encountering that surest of all cures for age that seafarers sometimes meet with.”
“I smell many odors,” said Blackhair in a distressed voice, “but think none of them good.”
“That is because you are unaccustomed to them and know no better,” replied Orm. “It may be that the sea-smell here is not so rich as that in the west, for there the sea is greener with salt and so has a richer tang to it. But this smell is nothing to complain of.”
To this Blackhair made no reply, for the seasickness had come over him. At first he was much ashamed of this, but his shame became less when he saw that many of the inland-dwellers were also beginning to hang over the ship’s side. One and another of them were soon heard to beg in unsteady voices that the ship might be turned back at once, before they all perished.
Orm and Toke, however, stood by the steering-oar and found everything to their liking.
“They will have to grow used to it, poor wretches,” said Orm. “I, too, once suffered thus.”
“Look at Sone’s sons,” said Toke. “Now they have something besides their father’s prophecy to worry about. It takes time for landlubbers to appreciate the beauty of life at sea. With this wind, though, they can vomit to windward without its blowing back into the face of the next man, and many quarrels between irritable persons will thereby be avoided. But I doubt whether they appreciate this. Understanding does not come naturally to a man at sea, but only by experience.”
“It comes in time,” said Orm, “however painful the process. If the wind drops, they will have to take to the oars, and I fear those who are not used to rowing will find the sport somewhat strenuous in such a sea as this. Then they will look back regretfully on the time when they were free to vomit in peace and had no need to toil.”
“Let us make Olof overseer,” said Toke. “The task needs someone who is used to commanding obedience.”
“Obeyed he may be,” said Orm, “but his popularity will suffer for it. It is a hard office for a man to perform, and hardest when the rowers are free men who are not used to the whip.”
“It will occupy his mind,” said Toke. “From his face, his thoughts would appear to be elsewhere; which I can well understand.”
Olof Summerbird was in a deep melancholy. He had seated himself on the deck beside them; he looked sleepy and said little. After a while he mumbled that he was unsure whether it was the sea-sickness or the lovesickness that was weighing on him, and asked whether they would be putting in to land for the night. Orm and Toke agreed, however, that this would be unwise if the wind held and the sky remained clear.
“To do so,” said Toke, “would merely be pandering to the landlubbers, more than one of whom, I doubt not, would disappear during the night. For they would easily be able to find their way home from here, happy at having escaped further misery. But by the time we reach Gotland, they will have found their sea-legs, and there we shall be safely able to let them ashore.”
Olof Summerbird sighed and said nothing.
“We shall save much food, besides, by keeping on our course,” said Orm. “For if we went ashore, they would eat a good meal, and then vomit it up again the next day, so that it would be wasted.”
In this he was right; for the wind remained favorable to them, and barely half of the men succeeded in doing themselves justice at mealtimes before they sighted Gotland. Blackhair soon collected himself, and Glad Ulf had been used to the sea from boyhood; and they took great pleasure in munching their food and praising its quality, watched by pale men who had no stomach to eat. But as soon as they reached calmer water near Gotland the men began to find their appetite, and Orm thought he had never seen such gluttony as they now displayed.
“But I must not grudge it them,” he said, “and now, perhaps, they will begin to be of some use.”