United States or French Guiana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They were met by a high wind off a certain promontory, and were driven ashore there, and damaged the keel of their ship, and were compelled to remain there for a long time and repair the injury to their vessel. Then said Thorvald to his companions, "I propose that we raise the keel upon this cape, and call it Keelness"; and so they did.
Even the fresh wind, blowing in from the outer sea, had already lost some of the bite they had felt two days before when its salt-laden mistiness had first struck them. "Then what do we do there?" Shann persisted. Thorvald brought over the map, his black-rimmed nail tracing a route down one of the fiords, slanting out to indicate a lace of islands extending in a beaded line across the sea.
Then said Thorvald, “Good land have we reached, and fat is it about the paunch.” Then the One-footer leapt away again northwards. They chased after him, and saw him occasionally, but it seemed as if he would escape them. He disappeared at a certain creek. Then they turned back, and one man spake this ditty:
Gudrun's First Marriage, A.D. 989 Thorvald was the name of a man, son of Haldor Garpdale's Priest. He lived at Garpsdale in Gilsfirth, a wealthy man, but not much of a hero. Thorvald spoke gently, and said he was wooing a wife, not money.
The animals' restlessness became acute as they sighted and scented the shore and knew that they were close. Taggi reared, plunged over the side of the craft, and Shann had just time to fling his weight in the opposite direction as a counterbalance when Togi followed. They splashed shoreward while Thorvald swore fluently and Shann grabbed to save the precious supply bag.
Thorvald was still on the hunt, but for what? A reality which existed, or a dream in his own disturbed brain? Shann sat down. He was very hungry, for that adventure in the lagoon had sapped his strength. And he was a prisoner along with the wolverines, a prisoner on an island which was half the size of the valley which held the Survey camp.
There came rowing towards them a ten-oared boat with six men on board, who hailed the sea-going ship and asked who was their captain. Onund told them his name and asked whence they came. They said they were the men of Thorvald from Drangar. Then Onund asked whether all the land round that coast was occupied; they answered there was very little left at Sudrstrandir and none at all in the North.
Yet he did not seem in the least worried about their being able to win through to the sea or if he was, his outer shell of unconcern remained uncracked. Before their first day together had ended, the younger Terran had learned that to Thorvald he was only another tool, to be used by the Survey officer in some project which the other believed of primary importance.
Shann made a statement instead of a question and saw that the other was watching him with a new intentness, as if he had at last been recognized as a person instead of rank and file and very low rank at that Survey personnel. "There is going to be a native race," Thorvald affirmed. Shann resheathed his knife and went to search the pond beach for a suitable stone to use in its place.
"I have told you there is land enough for both of them, also the gold that came with his mother will be his, and that's no small sum," answered Thorvald. "He's no warrior, but a skald," objected Athalbrand again; "a silly half-man who makes songs and plays upon the harp." "Songs are sometimes stronger than swords," replied my father, "and, after all, it is wisdom that rules.
Word Of The Day