"There's a vessel going to run us down!"

Every soul ran to the weather side and sought with starting eyes the
object of anticipated destruction. By the gleams of light a native
vessel, with a sole square-sail set, was imperfectly seen bearing down
on our weather bow; and although the wind and sea combined with the
darkness to render our annihilation seemingly inevitable, the crew of
the approaching bark sang, in a long, slow measure, two or three
Norwegian words, and their constant, drawling repetition became
distincter as the vessel, like an ice-berg, tore through the frothing
surge towards us. There stirred not a sound on board our cutter, except
the unceasing exhortation, spoken almost sepulchrally, of the pilot
standing near to the helmsman,

"Stea--dy!--stea--dy!"

Both pilots appeared to have understood the signification of the chant,
for they altered not the course of the cutter, but kept their eyes
fixed, as well as the night admitted, on the huge white sail of the
spectral vessel; and would make no other reply to our questions, but,

"They see us, they see us."

Like the spirit of the storm, the vast sail glided through the black air
above our top-mast, for it was so dark we could not distinguish the hull;
and there was something of mystery and impressive awe, amid the howling
tempest, the roar of thunder, and the flash of lightning, in this slow,
chanting recitation, uttered by a number of voices that seemed to
proceed from the dense obscurity.

It was a vessel from Bergen bound up the Sogne Fiord for timber; and the
crew having seen us buffeted, in such a shattered condition, by the
gale, and perceiving by the rig of the cutter, that she was a foreigner,
humanely bore down to us; and the mystical song of the sailors was a
signal to follow them, which being sung slowly and with unfailing
repetition, outlasted the blasts of wind, and gave us the opportunity of
catching the words as the two vessels rose on the crests of the waves.
Our pilots refused to adopt the counsel given, and run out to sea; for
had they done so, we might have found ourselves by daylight driven half
way to Trondhjem, and the life of King must have been sacrificed.

Neither wind nor sea yielded yet, and we were as stubborn; but had the
trim of the yacht not been true, and her liveliness that of a straw, the
swell would have made a clean breach over her decks, and its pressure
been fatal. At two we got under the lee of the long-de