For whatever reason, some voyagers had grown shy of the captain. Spying him behind the helmsman, Øistein went straight up and asked for an explanation.
Haven’t you seen a neap tide before? laughed Captain Gull. The sailors were all grinning at Øistein, who knew well enough that this was no neap tide.
Men commenced to raise their voices. Bendik Hermansson and the reverend essayed to come forward, but the two tall sailors informed them that since it was dangerous to crowd around the helm, they must wait their turn.
Captain Gull was smiling a little, his strangely refined white fingers stroking his beard, and he said: Øistein, you and your wife are reasonable people. I’m trusting in you to make the other passengers see reason.
Then kindly do the same for me. Where have you brought us, captain?
I informed you at the outset that this route is my business. Other masters would love to learn it, not that there’s much danger of that. Are you satisfied?
Why is your crew contracting the ship?
Well, well, it’s a very narrow passage, you see. And several of you embarked with too much luggage, against my advice—
We got no such advice! shouted Bendik Hermansson.
That’s as may be. We’ll be stopping at that island, where we’ll cache all unnecessary things. One valise per household can be kept, and no more.
But, captain, that’s not right! You never told us before—
Øistein, most people aren’t prepared to consider what a voyage of this sort entails. Had I warned you in advance of every conceivable difficulty, you might have backed out and gone to my competitors, who would have told you what you wished to hear. Then you would have been no better off, since everybody goes to the same place.
That’s not so. Some ships sail to New York and some—
Believe me, you all would have come to this sooner or later.
But, captain, how will I manage in America without my tools and seeds? What about the people who laid out every kroner they had on food and extra clothes, or Reverend Johansen, with all his books?
Overgazing him with angelic eyes, that seraphic oldster replied: Øistein, we all hold onto what we think is precious. We even convince ourselves that we’ll never manage without it. When your father-in-law died — see, I know about that! — your good wife could hardly endure to live, as you well remember, but then she persuaded herself to live, for you—
Who told you that?
And now our Kristina’s living for herself again, as she ought to. An admirable woman you have there! And Reverend Johansen only needs one book to practice his calling. As for you, my friend, I don’t mind letting you in on a secret: There’s treasure ahead! In the place where I’m taking you, you’ll find something that will set you up for life. This is for the best, you’ll see. Tell everyone. Now leave me to my business, for the helmsman needs me.
Finding nothing more practical to do, Øistein did as the master had told him; and on account of his clear and simple manner, not to mention those intimations of treasure, the passengers stayed calm, their pallid faces flowing in the darkness like stained glass figures framed in lead, Reverend Johansen comforting them with the verse which goes: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Meanwhile Kristina proved yet again that no one on this earth is as hopeful as an emigrant bride.
But soon the passage became rather narrow even for its own passengers. The Hyndla was now not much more than a keel. Her freeboard had so far diminished that Øistein could have knelt on deck and touched the waterline. The thwarts had already been swung into place and the sailors were sitting down to row, while the purser sat on the harness cask, neatly crossing names out of the ship’s register. Indeed, a number of emigrants had disappeared, Bendik Hermansson for one, and there seemed to be small use in searching for them. Several people had turned against Øistein, whom they considered to be, if not an accomplice, at least a pawn of the captain, but when he asked what else he should have done, they found nothing to say. The women kept weepingly outstretching their hands to the island where their possessions had been offloaded; its rock-darkness was nearly out of sight now. The Suldal men huddled together, evidently meditating the seizure of the ship, and although it pained Øistein that they distrusted him, he could not judge their notions; at any rate, they too soon vanished, together with all their families. Although the orange lanterns still shone on either side of the forecastle, as if the voyage were continuing well, as perhaps indeed it was, the shrinkage of the vessel, and the diminution of the people on it, soon became more rapid. The Hyndla appeared to be increasing speed; foam flashed against her sides. In a single long chest abovedecks remained all possessions that the passengers could not wear or carry; and their quarters had contracted to such an extent that sitting up was out of the question. Kristina thought that they might as well have been herring laid side by side into a rectangular tin.
Einar Sigvatsson’s mother-in-law Holmfrid now fell sick, and although the other women did everything they could for her, it appeared that she might not recover. In the morning she too was gone, and nobody could say where she had taken herself; that was peculiar enough, and very upsetting to little Ingigerd, of whom Kristina had grown fonder than ever. She told the child all the other stories she knew, good tales like herring shining in the sun; but presently she ran out of anything to tell, and so lay in her bunk, staring up at the bottom of the next berth while the child wailed and fretted. Reverend Johansen continued reading aloud from the Scriptures, and wondrous pretty his verses sometimes proved, especially the verse Glasir stands gold-leaved before Sigtyr’s halls. But where might Øistein be? He had always been known as someone who thought for himself. Couldn’t he save them from any of this? After all, Captain Gull appeared to listen to him. So she tried to be calm and awaited better news.
Kristina had once imagined that she knew sorrow, when only now, on this narrow passage, had it truly begun. Whatever we are used to, however unpleasant it may be, is better than being deprived of everything. Well, God willing, we won’t lose everything! By now all she wished for was to be restored to the miseries which had troubled her. Lying on her back side by side with the other passengers in the stinging acid stench of vomit, the vinegary smell of sweat and the sour-sweet reek of foul fish, with the ceiling pressing ever more closely in, again she made the time pass, if only to herself, by remembering her old home, since America was but a void to her, and this narrow passage did not seem like anything to be fancied. For a fact she should have comforted little Ingigerd, but instead she lay silent with her eyes shut, slowly chewing on a bit of flatbread. Yes, she felt homesick for the sweating, crowded blocks of wooden houses of Stavanger; even the slopridden mud-alleys between them were wider than her present situation. Once upon a time she had belonged to the triple line of pretty young women in their dark dresses and white aprons, their hair bobbed tight as they stood over the great salting-kettles, each nearly as large as the one which Thor won from the giant Hymir. Kristina’s frying pan was as large across as three burly men. Although she used to dislike the smoky fishy smell, racked barrels and salt-burned wooden ladles, enduring those years only because she could get no other work, she missed the cannery now; she would have been grateful to wake up unemployed in Stavanger again, quarrelling with her jobless husband, looking forward to hungry years. The patient dread in Øistein’s face, which he ingenuously supposed he concealed from her, sickened her with worry; and that was how she finally learned that her late mother had warned her welclass="underline" Marry carefully, Kristina! Young people think they can put on a ring and get help and pleasure for nothing. Really the best you can expect is an exchange of burdens. — In any event, she could hardly blame her husband as some of the other women on the Hyndla were doing, since they both knew very well that it was she, Kristina, who had chosen this conveniently short passage.