birch pole, the other end of which was hooked on shore.
This was to save his going ashore to unhook the pole. It was well for
him that boat-chains were not in use, owing to the scarcity of metal in
that region. The clink of a chain would certainly have been heard.

Quickly and silently he entered the boat and tied the skiff to its
stern, and he and Erica took their places where the men had sat one
minute before. They used their own muffled oars to turn the boat round,
till Oddo observed that the boat oars were muffled too. Then voices
were heard again. The men were returning. Strongly did the two
companions draw their strokes till a good breadth of water lay between
them and the shore, and then till they had again entered the deep shadow
which shrouded the mouth of the cove. There they paused.

"In with you!" some loud voice said, as man after man was seen in
outline coming down the pathway; "in with you! We have lost time enough
already."

"Where is she? I can't see the boat," answered the foremost man.

"You can't miss her," said one behind, "unless the brandy has got into
your eyes."

"So I should have said; but I do miss her. It is very incomprehensible
to me."

Oddo shook with stifled laughter as he partly saw and partly overheard
the perplexity of these men. At last one gave a deep groan, and another
declared that the spirits of the fiord were against them, and there was
no doubt that their boat was now lying twenty fathoms deep at the bottom
of the creek, drawn down by the strong hand of an angry water-spirit.
Oddo squeezed Erica's little hand as he heard this. If it had been
light enough, he would have seen that even she was smiling.

One of the men mourned their having no other boat, so that they must
give up their plan. Another said that if they had a dozen boats, he
would not set foot in one after what had happened. He should go
straight back, the way he came, to their own vessel. Another said he
would not go till he had looked abroad over the fiord for some chance of
seeing the boat. This he persisted in, though told by the rest that it
was absurd to suppose that the boat had loosed itself, and gone out into
the fiord, in the course of the two minutes that they had been absent.
He showed the fragment of the cut thong in proof of the boat not having
loosed itself, and set off for a point on the heights which he said
overlooked the fiord. One or two went with him, the rest returning up