n towards the
tiller, but a heavy plunge of the ship caused him to sheer off in quite
a different direction, and another lurch would have sent him
head-foremost against the lee-bulwarks had not Biarne, with a laugh,
caught him by the nape of the neck and set him against Karlsefin's left
leg, to which he clung with remarkable tenacity.

"Ay, hold on tight to that, boy," said the leg's owner, "and you'll be
safe. A few days will put you on your sea-legs, lad, and then you won't
want to hold on."

"Always hold your head up, Olaf, when you move about aboard ship in
rough weather," said Biarne, pausing a minute in his perambulation of
the deck to give the advice, "and look overboard, or up, or away at the
horizon--anywhere except at your feet. You can't see how the ship's
going to roll, you know, if you keep looking down at the deck."

Olaf acted on this advice at once, and then began to question Karlsefin
in regard to many nautical matters which it is not necessary to set down
here, while Biarne and Thorward leaned on the bulwarks and looked
somewhat anxiously to windward.

Already two reefs of the huge sail had been taken in, and Biarne now
suggested that it would be wise to take in another.

"Let it be done," said Karlsefin.

Thorward ordered the men to reef; and the head of the ship was brought
up to the wind so as to empty the sail while this was being done.

Before it was quite accomplished some of the women had assembled on the
poop.

"This is not pleasant weather," observed Gudrid, as she stood holding on
to her husband.

"We must not expect to have it all plain sailing in these seas," replied
Karlsefin; "but the dark days will make the bright ones seem all the
brighter."

Gudrid smiled languidly at this, but made no reply.

Freydissa, who scorned to receive help from man, had vigorously laid
hold of the bulwarks and gradually worked her way aft. She appeared to
be very much out of sorts--as indeed all the women were. There was a
greenish colour about the parts of their cheeks that ought to have been
rosy, and a whitey blue or frosted appearance at the points of their
noses, which damaged the beauty of the prettiest among them. Freydissa
became positively plain--and she knew it, which did not improve her
temper. Astrid, though fair and exceedingly pretty by nature, had
become alarmingly white; and Thora, who was dark, had become painfully
yellow. Poor Bertha, too, had a washed-out appearance, tho