Then he looked into the midmost of the sail and fell a-whistling such
a tune as the fiddles play to dancing men and maids at Yule-tide, and
his eyes gleamed and glittered therewithal, and exceeding big he
looked. Then Hallblithe felt a little air on his cheek, and the mist
grew thinner, and the sail began to fill with wind till the sheet
tightened: then, lo! the mist rising from the face of the sea, and
the sea's face rippling gaily under a bright sun. Then the wind
increased, and the wall of mist departed and a few light clouds sped
over the sky, and the sail swelled and the boat heeled over, and the
seas fell white from the prow, and they sped fast over the face of
the waters.

Then laughed the red-haired man, and said: "O croaker on the dead
branch, now is the wind such that no rowing of thine may catch up
with it: so in with the oars now, and turn about, and thou shalt see
whitherward we are going."

Then Hallblithe turned about on the thwart and looked across the sea,
and lo! before them the high cliffs and crags and mountains of a new
land which seemed to be an isle, and they were deep blue under the
sun, which now shone aloft in the mid heaven. He said nought at all,
but sat looking and wondering what land it might be; but the big man
said: "O tomb of warriors, is it not as if the blueness of the deep
sea had heaved itself up aloft, and turned from coloured air into
rock and stone, so wondrous blue it is? But that is because those
crags and mountains are so far away, and as we draw nigher to them,
thou shalt see them as they verily are, that they are coal-black; and
yonder land is an isle, and is called the Isle of Ransom. Therein
shall be the market for thee where thou mayst cheapen thy betrothed.
There mayst thou take her by the hand and lead her away thence, when