mpty boats.

But Jack of Sjoeholm, who was with them, only laughed aloud, and said
that, if there were no fish there, fish would certainly be found higher
northwards. Surely they hadn't rowed out all this distance only to eat
up all their victuals, said he.

He was quite a young chap, who had never been out fishing before. But
there was some sense in what he said for all that, thought the
head-fisherman.

And so they set their sails northwards.

On the next fishing-ground they fared no better than before, but they
toiled away so long as their food held out.

And now they all insisted on giving it up and turning back.

"If there's none here, there's sure to be some still higher up towards
the north," opined Jack; "and if they had gone so far, they might surely
go a little further still," quoth he.

So they tempted fortune from fishing-ground to fishing-ground, till they
had ventured right up to Finmark.[2] But there a storm met them, and,
try as they might to find shelter under the headlands, they were obliged
at last to put out into the open sea again.

There they fared worse than ever. They had a hard time of it. Again and
again the prow of the boat went under the heavy rollers, instead of over
them, and later on in the day the boat foundered.

There they all sat helplessly on the keel in the midst of the raging
sea, and they all complained bitterly against that fellow Jack, who had
tempted them on, and led them into destruction. What would now become of
their wives and children? They would starve now that they had none to
care for them.

When it grew dark, their hands began to stiffen, and they were carried
off by the sea one by one.

And Jack heard and saw everything, down to the last shriek and the last
clutch; and to the very end they never ceased reproaching him for
bringing them into such misery, and bewailing their sad lot.

"I must hold on tight now," said Jack to himself, for he was better even
where he was than in the sea.

And so he tightened his knees on the keel, and held on fast till he had
no feeling left in either hand or foot.

In the coal-black gusty night he fancied he heard yells from one or
other of the remaining boats' crews.

"They, too, have wives and children," thought he. "I wonder whether they
have also a Jack to lay the blame upon!"

Now while he thus lay there and drifted and drifted, and it seemed to
him to be drawing towards dawn, he suddenly felt that the boat was in