We had no mind to set all men against the ship at first sight as an enemy who came prepared for battle.
We entered the northern branch of the fjord, and at once the high cliffs rose above us again, for the waterway narrowed until we were in a deep cleft of the mountains.

The water was still as glass in the evening quiet, and as the stars came out overhead, we seemed to be sailing under one deep sky and on another.

But the oar blades broke the water into brighter stars than those which were reflected, and after us stretched a wake of white light between the black cliffs, for the strange sea fires burnt in the broken waters brightly, coming and going as the waves swirled around the ship's path.
So we went steadily for a long way, and then we came to a place where the rocky walls of the channel nearly met, so that one could have thrown a stone from the deck on either as we passed.

High up on the left cliffside a little light glimmered, for a cottage hung as it were on a shelf of the mountain above us.

The measured beat of the oars sounded hollow here as the sheer cliffs doubled their sounds.