DRAWN INTO THE WHIRLPOOL

(A Norway Boy’s Adventure.)

by DAVID KER.

Under the lee of a small island on the northwest coast of Norway a young fisher-lad lay sleeping in the boat in which he had been out all night, unconscious of the grim face and cruel eye that watched him from the thicket above with a look that boded him no good.  Just then, two men came pulling round the point behind which his boat was moored, and one of them said to the other, loud enough to be heard by the hidden watcher overhead, though not to wake the sleeper: 

“There’s a rich Englishman come into Langeness, in his yacht, and he’s offered a big reward to any man that’ll find out what those letters are that are carved on the sea-king’s grave.”

“Why don’t he offer a reward for the moon?” laughed the other.  “Does he think any money can tempt men to go right into a whirlpool that would swallow the stoutest boat in these seas like a biscuit?”

“But they say that at the flood-tide you may go through it without harm, if you start just at the right moment.”

“Aye! if you do.  But who would be fool enough to risk it?”

Then they passed on, and their voices were lost in the distance.

The moment their boat was out of sight, behind the rocks, a wild face peered through the matted boughs overhead, and a bulky figure rose stealthily from the bushes and crept downward toward the sleeping boy, with a long knife in its hand.  One quick slash cut the mooring-rope, and the boat slowly drifted seaward with its slumbering occupant.

“The current sets straight for the whirlpool,” muttered the ruffian, with a cruel laugh, “and, when he’s missed, they’ll think the reward tempted him.  I’m quits at last with his father for the thrashing that he gave me!”

Only a few miles from the spot, a small rocky islet had sunk down into the sea ages ago, creating by its fall one of the most dangerous whirlpools in northern waters, known in Norway as the “Well of Tuftiloe.”

In the midst of the whirl stood up one dark, pillar-shaped crag, the sole remnant of the lost islet, which the Norsemen, believing it to be some ancient hero’s tomb, called “The Sea King’s Grave.”  And, in fact, passing yachtsmen had seen upon it from a distance, through their telescopes, traces of rude carving, and something that looked like the half-effaced letters of an old Runic inscription.  But although the whirlpool, like its big brother, the maelstrom, was believed to be passable at certain states of the tide, no one had ever dared to try.

The quickening motion of the current, as it bore the light boat swiftly along, roused the boy at last, but it was too late.  Being half asleep, it was some minutes ere he realized what had befallen him or whither he was going, and the first warning he had of this rush straight upon certain destruction was the dull roar of the distant whirlpool, which, the tide being now full ebb, was just at the height of its fury.