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I was launched on the life for which I had longed, but strange, shadowy forms like the storm-fiends of sailors' lore, drunkenness, deceit and crime on whose presence I had not counted flitted about my ship's masthead. And there was not one guiding star, not one redeeming influence, except the utter freedom to be a man.
And when he looked out, he saw the storm-fiends riding on a whale. One was in form like to a great white bear, the other like unto a terrible eagle. "Now help me, O gift of the sea-god! Help me, my gallant 'Ellide'!" cried Frithiof.
A huge wave, leaping like some ravenous animal to the deck, had caught him and was gone; while the spirit of the wind laughed in demoniacal glee as he was tossed from crest to crest, the sport of the cruel billows. The captain had seen, but was powerless to help. The schooner was but the plaything of the waves, while to launch a boat ah, how the storm-fiends would have laughed at the attempt!
Aeshma, later Asmodeus, may be named; he is one of the Drvants, or storm-fiends.
And the dragon-ship heard her master's voice, and with her keel she smote the whale; so he died, and sank to the bottom of the sea, leaving the storm-fiends tossing upon the waves. "Ho, spears and lances, help me in my need!" shouted Frithiof, as he took aim at the monsters.
It streaked through the stained-glass window, showing the dreadful picture like a vision to those below it, throwing a stream of vivid crimson upon the floor; then glanced away into the dark. There came a sound like the bursting of shell that shook the very walls to their foundation. And through it and above it, high and horrible as the laughter of storm-fiends there came a woman's laugh....
And he transfixed the shrieking storm-fiends, and left them entangled in the huge coils of seaweed which the storm had uprooted. "Ho, ho!" laughed rugged Bjorn, "they are trapped in their own nets."
And "a pretty pickle" it was, with the "porps" floundering bodily from wave-crest to wave-crest, the winds shrieking through the cordage, and the storm-fiends brewing a hurricane like to engulf master and crew! In the forehold were rebels who would sink us all to the bottom of the sea if they could. Aft, powder enough to blow us all to eternity!
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