Gone, too, was the old king--without help of ours.
The sea he loved had taken him, drawing him softly to itself with the ebb of the water from the deck, and covering the place alongside, where I had feared for Gerda to see the dull splash and eddy of the end, with a pall of snow-white foam.
For a long moment we stood motionless, half terrified.

Neither before this had any sea come on board since we lowered the gunwale nor did any come afterward.

Gerda clutched my arm, swaying with the ship, and then she cried in a strange voice: "It is Aegir! Aegir himself who has taken him!" That was in my mind also, and no wonder.

The happening seemed plainly beyond the natural.

I turned to Gerda, fearing lest she should be over terrified, and saw her staring with wide eyes into the mists across that sea grave, wondering; and then of a sudden she pointed, and cried once more: "Look! what is yonder?
Look!" Then we all saw what she gazed at.