It may save words,
and time."
So I persuaded her, and she left me to don the war gear for the
last time, as she told me. She would dress herself even as she had
been clad for the funeral and as we had found her.
Then the tide turned, and slowly the current from the sea found its
way up the fjord and reached us, and we warped out of the narrow
berth between the rocks, and manned the oars and set out on the
last stage of our voyage. The mast was lowered and housed by this
time, and the ship ready for aught. Only we did not hang the war
boards along the gunwales, and we had no dragon head on the stem,
for that Heidrek had not carried at any time. We had no mind to set
all men against the ship at first sight as an enemy who came
prepared for battle.
We entered the northern branch of the fjord, and at once the high
cliffs rose above us again, for the waterway narrowed until we were
in a deep cleft of the mountains. The water was still as glass in
the evening quiet, and as the stars came out overhead, we seemed to
be sailing under one deep sky and on another. But the oar blades
broke the water into brighter stars than those which were
reflected, and after us stretched a wake of white light between the
black cliffs, for the strange sea fires burnt in the broken waters
brightly, coming and going as the waves swirled around the ship's
path.
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