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Even if his messenger should prove faithless and tell the truth, it would not greatly matter, seeing that he knew nothing which could be of service to anybody. And so the steersman sailed away, while Ramiro, filled with memories, reflections, and hopes, walked quietly through the Morsch Poort into the good city of Leyden.
Oh, what an anodyne amid the ups and downs of life, and the flux and reflux of the tides of prosperity, to know that we have a changeless God, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Xerxes garlanded and knighted the steersman of his boat in the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day.
I am too old, and less able to bear hardship than formerly." Rolf and the steersman, who had overheard the offer, exchanged glances of relief, and allowed themselves to breathe again. But to their consternation, Leif did not take advantage of this loop-hole.
Oh, how he repented having ever left Helpston, in the fatal ambition of becoming a lawyer's clerk! The journey from Peterborough to Wisbeach, in those days, was by a Dutch canal boat a long narrow kind of barge, drawn by one horse, with a large saloon in front for common passengers, and a little room for a possible select company behind, near the steersman.
And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree.
So the steersman let go the helm from his hands, when he thought the sun would have set on the land, and threw himself down, and 'What mariner should choose might trample him! We did not at first understand the real reason, but took it for despair, and went to him and besought him not to give up all hope yet. For in plain fact the big rollers still kept on, and the sea was at issue with itself.
The engine-driver, who said he was "dazed," and the steersman, who attributed his mistake at the wheel to the interference of some unknown outsider were not these things an indication that my dreadful suspicion was well grounded? And if so, to what frightful malignity did they not point!
"I should not wonder if she were well tried to-night," replied the man. For a moment or two the officer made no rejoinder; but then approaching the steersman nearer still, he said, in a low voice, "Come, my man, I have something to tell you. We must alter our course very soon; I am not going to yon Frenchman at all."
Ah! my Helen, wherever you are, to-night, know that I am trying to keep myself steering straight for the Port that you have reached and, God helping me, I will bring the babies safe along, too!" He bowed his head on his hands a minute, and the old steersman, watching him, thought, with affectionate sympathy. "The capt'n's tired to-night, and no wonder.
It is probable that Alwin would not have hurried to obey the summons, but with a nod and a smile Helga turned away, and there was nothing for him but to go forward to meet the steersman. The old warrior regarded the young favorite with his usual apathy. "It is the wish of Leif that you attend upon him directly." "Is he in his sleeping-room?" "Yes." It occurred to Alwin to wonder at this summons.
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