Gerda clutched my arm, swaying with the
ship, and then she cried in a strange voice:
"It is Aegir! Aegir himself who has taken him!"
That was in my mind also, and no wonder. The happening seemed
plainly beyond the natural. I turned to Gerda, fearing lest she
should be over terrified, and saw her staring with wide eyes into
the mists across that sea grave, wondering; and then of a sudden
she pointed, and cried once more:
"Look! what is yonder? Look!"
Then we all saw what she gazed at. As it were about a ship's length
from us sailed another ship, tall and shadowy and gray, holding the
same course as ourselves, and keeping place with us exactly, rising
and falling over the hills of water as we rose and fell. And we
could see that she had the same high dragon stem and stern as our
ship, and on her decks we could make out forms of men amidships,
dim and misty as the ship herself. Yet though we could see her
thus, in no wise could we make out the sea on which she rode--so
thick was the curling fog everywhere, though the sun was trying to
find a way through it, changing its hue from gray to pearly white.
Now, Bertric started from the stillness which held us, and hailed
the ship loudly.
"Ahoy! what ship is that?"
The hail rang, and seemed to echo strangely in the fog, but there
came no answer.
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