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Then the young reat furnaces aood ships ahead no matter ind ave thean to turn, so slowly at first that they appeared scarcely to: "It may be that you shall find my father Should you find hi low even such prowess as his Yet even so, you may be sorely vexed to find your way to the sea once ht Yet there is a way Froht hand you er There you will see a thousand tangled lines Be not discouraged, but study it closely; for it is the ht always have it by hire

Inland they turned their bow, and even as the princess had foretold, the channel they followed soon divided, and divided again, until there were a thousand forking channels and ten thousand islets When the shadow of theave orders that the anchors be cast, and the fires banked, and there, for a long afternoon, they waited, oiling the guns, and readying the powder, and preparing all that ht battle

At length Night ca from islet to islet with her bats about her shoulders and her dire wolves dogging her steps No e she seemed, yet they all observed that she passed not before Hesperus or even Sirius; but they before her For a moment only she turned her face toward them, and none could be certain what her look conveyed But all of there had taken her without her will as her daughter had said; and if so, if she had not lost the resentined to have felt

With the first light, the trumpet sounded from the quarterdeck and the banked fires were fed new fuel; but as the dawn breeze stood fair for the channel they held, the young reat wheels were ready to take their first step And when the white specter wakened, the ship pressed forward at double speed

For h that there was no need to furl the sails or even put about A hundred others crossed it, and at each they studied the water; but each was translucent as crystal To tell the strange sights they beheld on the islets they passed would require a dozen tales as long as this - wo the ship, and in kissing theht to smear their faces with the powder fro before lay by springs of wine and drank still, too stupefied to know their lives were past; beasts that would be omens to future times, with twisted limbs and fur of colors never seen, waited the nearer approach of battles, earthquakes, and the s

At last the youth who stood firstman fleshed from drea: "Far we have traveled on this channel already, and the sun, that had not shown his face e bent our sails, approaches his zenith Following it, we have crossed a thousand others, and none has shone a trace of the ogre May it not be that it is an unlucky course we take? Would not it be wiser to turn aside soon and try another?"

Then the young man answered: "Even noe pass a channel to starboard Look down, and tell me if its waters are more soiled than our own"

The youth did as he was bid, and said: "Nay, clearer"

"Soon now, another opens to port To what depth can you see?"

The youth waited until the ship stood opposite the channel of which the young man spoke, and then he answered: "To the ut time past, many a fathom down"

"And can you see so far in this channel we sail now?"

Then the youth looked at the waters they cleaved, and they were beco wheelscauns, for he could not tell the before

Ahead lay an islet higher than most, croith tall and soently, so that the wind, that had been dead astern, was at the quarter The steersrip on the wheel, and the watch payed out certain sheets and tightened others, and the ship's prow came around the quick curve of the cliff, and there before thele castle of iron aer than any they carried thrusting fro man fleshed from dreams opened his lips to shout to the bow-chaser crews that they should fire Before the words could be spoken, the great gun of their enemy roared, and its sound was not as thunder or as any other sound familiar to the ears of men; but rather, it seemed that they had stood in a tall tower of stone, and it had fallen all around them in a moment And the ball of that shot struck the breech of the first gun of their starboard battery, and striking it broke it to pieces and shattered itself as well, so that the fragh the ship like dark leaves before a great wind, andno order, swung the ship about until her port battery bore, and the guns fired each by the will of the man that pointed it, as wolves howl at the le castle of the enemy to either side, and some struck it so that it tolled knells for those who had perished a moment before, and some struck the water before the hull that bore it, and some struck the deck (which was of iron also) and at that contact fled shrieking into the sky

Then the single gun of their eneain

And so it continued, inhter of Night; but though the wind blew strong, it was hardly more than astern of his ship, and if he were to shift until it blew from him to his eneun would bear but the bow chasers, and then when a battery ht to bear, it would be the starboard, of which one gun was destroyed and so many men dead

But it caht as a hundred others had fought, and that these hundred others were all dead, their ships sunk and their bones scattered aled the face of the isle of the ogre Then he gave his order to the steersman; but none answered, for he was dead, and the wheel he had held, held hi man fleshed from dreams took the spokes in his own hands and presented to their enemy the ship's narro Then it was seen how the three sisters favor the bold, for the next shot froht have raked her froth of an oar And the next, to starboard by the width of a boat

Now their ene to fly nor to close, swung about Seeing that he would escape theh already they had won the victory But le castle, which all had until then believed fixed, swung about the other way, so that its great gun, that was greater than any of their own, still bore