Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/526

 very firmly in his, she said to him, “Jurgen, I have something on my mind which I want to tell you. Let me be your housekeeper, for you are like a brother to me. But Martin has engaged himself to me, and he and I are lovers, but you need not tell the rest.” Then it seemed to Jurgen as if the sand were loose, and giving way beneath his feet. He spoke not a word, but merely nodded his head to signify “yes.” More was not necessary, but suddenly there arose in his heart a feeling of hatred against Martin, and the more he thought, the more convinced he felt that Martin had stolen away from him the only being he ever loved, and that it was Elsie; he had never thought of Elsie in this way before, but now it became all plain to him,

When the sea is rather agitated, and the fishermen are coming home in their boat, it is a wonderful sight to see how they manage to cross the reef. One of the men stands upright in the bow of the boat, and the others watch him, sitting with the oars in their hands. Outside the reef it appears as if the boat were not approaching the land, but going back to sea. At last, the man standing up in the boat gives them the signal that the great wave is coming which is to lift them over the reef. A moment, and then the boat is raised so high in the air that her keel may be seen from the shore; and at the next she is entirely hidden from the eye; neither mast, nor keel, nor men can be seen; it is as if they had been devoured by the sea. But presently they emerge from the deep, like a great sea animal sporting with the waves, and the oars move as if they were the creature’s legs. The second and the third reef are passed in the same manner, and then the fishermen jump into the water, and the boat is pushed forward on the heaving waves, till it is at length drawn up safely on shore, beyond the reach of the breakers. A wrong order given by the man in the bow in front of the reef, the slightest hesitation, and the boat would be lost. “Then it would be all over with me and Martin, too.” This thought passed through the mind of Jurgen one day, when they were out at sea in the same boat together. His foster- father was on board, but he was taken suddenly ill when only a few oars’ stroke from the reef, and Jurgen sprang from his seat to take his father’s place in the bow.

“Father, let me come,” he said; and his eye glanced towards Martin, and across the waves: but while every oar bent with the strong pull of the rowers, as the great wave rose before them, he looked in the pale face of his father, and dared not obey the evil suggestion of his heart. The boat crossed the reef safely and came to land, but the evil thought remained in his mind, and roused up those bitter feelings which had existed there since he and Martin had quarrelled. He could not crush down these feelings, nor did he endeavour to do so. He felt that Martin had robbed him of a treasure, and this he thought cause enough for his hatred of his former friend. Several of the fishermen noticed the change, but not Martin, who was as obliging and talkative as ever; perhaps too much of the latter.

Jurgen’s foster-father took to his bed, which became his death-bed, for during the following week he died, and Jurgen found himself heir of the little house behind the sand-hills. It was but small, certainly, but still it was something, at all events more than Martin could boast of.