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Nor are they small sailing vessels of a few tons' burden, but great sailless, steam-propelled hulks, carrying from five to ten thousand tons. So it is no fleet of graceful galleons half bird, half lion, as the Griffin was that have followed in her wake up what Hennepin called "the vast and unknown seas of which even the savages knew not the end."
In Adrian's case, however, the weirdness of the sand-hills and the grandeur of the seascape with the bitter wind that blew between and the solitude which brooded over all, served only to exasperate nerves that already were strained well nigh to breaking. Why had his father brought him to this hideous swamp bordered by a sailless sea? To save their lives from the fury of the mob?
There are two other points, one legendary, one historical, which ought to be mentioned for the sake of those who like to know the sources of stories like that of Lohengrin. The ancient Angles had a saga which told of the arrival in their country of a boat, evidently sailless, oarless, and rudderless, containing only a child surrounded by arms and treasure.
Thereat we marvelled, and yet more when we saw that its sail was striped of gold and green and black; next then were we betwixt fear and joy when, as it drew nigher, we saw three women in the said boat, clad in gold, green, and black; and it came so nigh unto us at last, that we could see their faces that they were verily those of our lovelings; and each reached out her arms to us and called on us for help, each by our name: and there we were, oarless, sailless, at the mercy of our unkenned ferry.
"Ay! thus we move, helpless, lost, and beyond the aid of man, convoyed by a fleet of fantasies into a sailless sea, and to an unknown fate. Well I know that by to-morrow, myriads of eyes will watch for signs of our presence from Canseau to Gaspé, and on both shores of St. Jean; but they will look in vain.
Those who are out of touch with great and dusty events may, by way of compensation, be the more sensitive to the processes of the universe, which, though incessantly repeated, are blessed with recurrent freshness. The sun rises, travels across a cloudless sky, gleams on a sailless sea, disappears behind purple mountains gilding their outline, and the day is done.
"No," said O'Shea; "there's cargo aboard of her yit, but the men are off of her." It was a black ship that, sailless and with masts pitifully aslant, was fixed on the sand among the surf, and the movement of the water made her appear to labour forward as if in dying throes making effort to reach the shore.
Lacking the life of the horse-plough, it is suggestive of concentrated force far beyond anything in the elaborate show of its predecessor. The change suggests, not inaptly, the evolution of the old ship of the line under full canvas into the modern man-of-war, sailless and grim, and the conceit is strengthened by the warlike build of the electric sweeper.
He therefore struck his bell and prayed to God for help in this extremity. In a short time after this they saw coming towards them on the crest of the waves an empty, sailless ship and no man therein. Thereupon Declan said: "Let us enter the ship in the name of Christ, and He who has sent it to us will direct it skilfully to what harbour soever He wishes we should go."
But never over the sailless sea Came messenger bark or schooner With news from the far-off realm whence we Set sail for that isle of mystery, Or a whisper of apology From our mute, malign marooner.
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