not be much on Anglesey. He'll get no boat there, nor for miles away, and by that time we shall be along the Irish coast, which none knows better than I.'
We had a strong wind, a following wind, and the sea went well before us. After a bit I went below and lay down on some mats and sails and slept. When I awoke, our vessel was south of Wicklow Head and off the Horse Shoe Bank which we kept inland of us.
'When you sleep, you sleep!' Owain declared. He pointed ahead and to starboard.
' 'Tis an easy coast here, if one be watchful. Yon lies a rock ... Wolf Rock, 'tis called, and she bares her teeth when the wind blows. There are banks along the coast, no place for a ship to be caught, so a man must hold well out upon the sea. Most of the dangers lie four to six miles out, along here.'
We stood together, watching the sea ahead. 'Landsmen!' he said. 'Such fools, they are! Why, a month ago in Dublin town I heard one talk in a tavern, a wise man, they said he was, and he was saying how ancient seafaring men were afeard to venture to sea, that they always held close along the coast for safety. I laughed at him, and he became angered.'
'Did you tell him?'
'I did, but what good to tell fools? I told him the dangers of the deep ocean were one in ten to the risks along an unknown coast, or even a known one. He looked at me with pity for my ignorance, he who had never set a sail nor held a hand to the tiller. Look you! Ahead of us lie the Arklow Bank, the Glassgorman, Blackwater and Dogger, and any one a death trap-be you not knowing them. Yet the sea looks innocent enough to a landsman.'
'The Icelander you spoke of. Where will he be?'
Owain considered that. 'He may have moved, yet I think in Castlehaven or Glandore. He does not like busy places, that one.'
Green lay the coast and gray the sea, and the wind whipped whitecaps from the wave crests and stung our faces widi blown spray. Our craft lay over on its side and cut the waves handily as if playing with the sea, like a porpoise. We saw only a few fishing boats closer in, and one square-rigged ship, afar off.
From time to time I took the tiller.
It was Glandore Bay to which we came at last, rounding Galley Head and Foilsnashark Head and keeping Adam Island well off our port beam. The Bay was small, but it penetrated well into the land and was thus well- protected from all winds.
There were two castles in view. This was, or had been, a seat of the O'Donovans.
The gray walls of Castle Donovan arose on our port side.
We dropped anchor there, close in, and the ship we looked for was there, the Icelander standing by the rail watching us as we steered into the harbor.
'Hoy, Thorvald!' Owain called. 'I have two for your ship!'
'Ve sail for Newfoundland!' Thorvald called back. 'Ve sail at first light!'
'It is my sister who goes, and an Englisher. We have followed you from Anglesey!'
A skiff was lowered and Lila climbed down, then I. Owain rowed us over, and we climbed aboard.
'A woman aboard my ship? I would do it only for you, Owain!'
Thorvald was broad and thick, heavy-boned and blond. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes. 'You are a sailor, yes?'
'I am.'
'Vhere is it you go?'
'To Virginia, but Newfoundland is a step upon the way. We thank you.'
'Somevon looks for you?'
'Aye, mayhap a Queen's ship, but if you do not wish to risk it, we will find another way, or buy our own boat and sail it together.'
Thorvald chuckled. 'You'll find that hard, very hard! And cold, too.' He smiled wryly. 'If a Queen's ship will follow vhere ve go, she may have you, und velcome.'
The hills were green and lovely around the Bay of Glandore, and the crumbling ruin of Castle Donovan looked wild and strange among the thick-standing trees above the bay. We went ashore in the skiff, and at a place to which Owain took us, I bought some provisions.
Curiously, I glanced around the old building. It was a combination warehouse and shop, a place I suspected where a goodly portion of the merchandise had been smuggled. We bought what we needed, including some additional stores for the ship, and then returned to our boat.
It was no great craft, at all, but built somewhat on the lines of a Norwegian bojort with a square topsail above the spritsail, a lateen mizzen and a small spritsail under the bowsprit. It was called the Snarri, and I liked the look and the feel of her. She was steered with a whipstaff, which gave the man at the helm a chance to observe the sails.
There was a small cabin aft and a section was curtained off for Lila.
The sky was gray when we left the emerald-green harbor of Glandore behind and sailed past the islands into open sea. Standing amidships I looked back at Ireland. Would I ever again see the isles of Britain?
The wind blew smartly from the south, yet Thorvald crowded on what sail we had to make good time toward Iceland. A sound of distant thunder with far-off streaks of lightning warned us what trouble lay ahead, but Thorvald had grown up on a ship's deck, and the man on the whipstaff was a burly fellow of forty years or more, who looked the Viking he was.
Shortly before noon I relieved the helmsmen, and Thorvald stood by, keeping a close eye upon me for he was no man to trust his ship to an unknown. But I was a fair hand from the boating down off the fens. After a bit he no longer watched so closely, trusting my hand and judgment.
Most of the time, Lila stayed below. When the weather was mild enough and the ship steady, she cooked with supplies from the stores, always warm, nourishing food.
Thorvald looked at her and shook his head. 'You spoil us all, Lila. It is not good for sailor to expect too much!'
He wasted no time, but laid a course for the northwest, pulling steadily away from any area where a search might be directed, steering toward the cold northern waters.
At midnight I awakened and came on deck to stand beside Thorvald. 'If you wish to sleep,' I said, 'you can leave her to me.'
'I am tired,' he said simply. 'The course is northwest-by-north.'
He went below, and I was alone with the man on the whip-staff, whose face I could not see under his cowling.
The wind had grown colder with the days, and when at last the mountains of Iceland loomed ahead we gathered amidship to look at land again, and Thorvald took us easily into a small cove where lay his home.
Three days we lay in port, and then once more set sail. Now the wind was steady but cold. And on the night watch it grew suddenly colder. Wary of some change, I awakened Thorvald.
He came on deck, sniffed to smell the wind, waited a bit, and then said, 'Ice!'
We changed course toward the south. Suddenly I saw something white and glistening in the water. It was ice. Soon we saw several patches of broken ice and then, looming, a huge berg.
We passed her, several hundred yards off, a vast white tower pointing an icy finger at the clouds.
The days passed swiftly. It was a gray and overcast day when we sighted the birds of Witless Bay, and turned north along the coast, for we'd made our landfall a bit to the south of our port.
We moved into St. John's harbor and dropped our anchor there. Many boats were about, Portuguese, Basque, and Icelandic fishermen, and some others, just as obviously pirates. The pirates loved the rugged bays and small harbors of the island. They liked to recruit seamen there, for the Newfoundlanders were hardy men, skilled in all the work of ships and the sea, welcome aboard any ship, but doubly so aboard pirate craft for whom speed and seamanship were a prime requirement.
'Ve'll go no further here,' Thorvald said. 'Ve sell vhat ve have brought and ve load fish for home.'
'I wish I could tempt you. I've traded for furs along that coast.' I indicated where the large land might lie beyond the island. 'There's a fortune to be had for the taking.'
Thorvald shook his head, although his eyes held on the western horizon.
'Think, man,' I suggested, 'you could take back as much in one voyage as in four.'
He shook his head again. 'I vill find a boat for you,' he said, 'I know all here, und they know me.'
