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But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-Stroem whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead but no more like the every-day Moskoe-Stroem, than the whirl as you now see it is like a mill-race.
The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excess of nervous agitation. "This," said I at length, to the old man "this can be nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelstroem." "So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the Moskoe-stroem, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."
It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard but the next moment all this joy was turned into horror for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-stroem! "No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of the ague.
"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered 'on the grounds' it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the Moskoe-stroem itself without accident; although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack.
I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-stroem.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-stroem, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere.
By degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-stroem had been.
The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-stroem must be immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag of Helseggen.
"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man, "and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-stroem." I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.
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