And yet⁠—what was it the Norseman had said?

“The sparkling devil took them!” Nay, he had been even more explicit⁠—“The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!”

Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda , drawing down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson’s wife and babe even as it had drawn Throckmartin?

As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt, violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.

The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.