prez. "Yes; the
divine waitresses wore winding sheets, and the wine was served in
imitation skulls. Excellent! I remember; the tables were shaped like
coffins."

"Gude Lord Almighty!" piously murmured Macfarlane. "What a fearsome
sicht!"

As he pronounced these words with an unusually marked accent, Duprez
looked inquiring.

"What does our Macfarlane say?"

"He says it must have been a 'fearsome sicht,'" repeated Lorimer, with
even a stronger accent than Sanby's own, "which, _mon cher_ Pierre,
means all the horrors in your language; _affreux_, _epouvantable_,
_navrant_--anything you like, that is sufficiently terrible."

"_Mais, point du tout_!" cried Duprez energetically. "It was charming!
It made us laugh at death--so much better than to cry! And there was a
delicious child in a winding-sheet; brown curls, laughing eyes and
little mouth; ha ha! but she was well worth kissing!"

"I'd rather follow ma own funeral, than kiss a lass in a winding-sheet,"
said Sandy, in solemn and horrified tones. "It's just awfu' to think
on."

"But, see, my friend," persisted Duprez, "you would not be permitted to
follow your own funeral, not possible,--_voila_! You _are_ permitted to
kiss the pretty one in the winding-sheet. It _is_ possible. Behold the
difference!"

"Never mind the Taverne de l'Enfer just now," said Errington, who had
finished his breakfast hurriedly. "It's time for you fellows to get your
fishing toggery on. I'm off to speak to the pilot."

And away he went, followed more slowly by Lorimer, who, though he
pretended indifference, was rather curious to know more, if possible,
concerning his friend's adventure of the morning. They found the pilot,
Valdemar Svensen, leaning at his ease against the idle wheel, with his
face turned towards the eastern sky. He was a stalwart specimen of Norse
manhood, tall and strongly built, with thoughtful, dignified features,
and keen, clear hazel eyes. His chestnut hair, plentifully sprinkled
with gray, clustered thickly over a broad brow, that was deeply furrowed
with many a line of anxious and speculative thought, and the forcible
brown hand that rested lightly on the spokes of the wheel, told its own
tale of hard and honest labor. Neither wife nor child, nor living
relative had Valdemar; the one passion of his heart was the sea. Sir
Philip Errington had engaged him at Christiansund, hearing of him there
as a man to whom the intricacies of the Fjords, and the dangers of
roc