CHAPTER I

Produced by John Bickers; Dagny; David Widger

THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN

By H. Rider Haggard

First Published in 1922.

DEDICATION

My Dear Little,

Some five-and-thirty years ago it was our custom to discuss many

matters, among them, I think, the history and romance of the vanished

Empires of Central America.

In memory of those far-off days will you accept a tale that deals with

one of them, that of the marvellous Incas of Peru; with the legend also

that, long before the Spanish Conquerors entered on their mission of

robbery and ruin, there in that undiscovered land lived and died a White

God risen from the sea?

Ever sincerely yours, H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham, Oct. 24, 1921.

James Stanley Little, Esq.

THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN

INTRODUCTORY

There are some who find great interest, and even consolation, amid the

worries and anxieties of life in the collection of relics of the past,

drift or long-sunk treasures that the sea of time has washed up upon our

modern shore.

The great collectors are not of this class. Having large sums at their

disposal, these acquire any rarity that comes upon the market and add

it to their store which in due course, perhaps immediately upon their

deaths, also will be put upon the market and pass to the possession of

other connoisseurs. Nor are the dealers who buy to sell again and thus

grow wealthy. Nor are the agents of museums in many lands, who purchase

for the national benefit things that are gathered together in certain

great public buildings which perhaps, some day, though the thought

makes one shiver, will be looted or given to the flames by enemies or by

furious, thieving mobs.

Those that this Editor has in mind, from one of whom indeed he obtained

the history printed in these pages, belong to a quite different

category, men of small means often, who collect old things, for the most

part at out-of-the-way sales or privately, because they love them, and

sometimes sell them again because they must. Frequently these old things

appeal, not because of any intrinsic value that they may have, not

even for their beauty, for they may be quite unattractive even to the

cultivated eye, but rather for their associations. Such folk love to

reflect upon and to speculate about the long-dead individuals who have

owned the relics, who have supped their soup from the worn Elizabethan

spoon, who have sat at the rickety oak table found in a kitchen or an

out-house, or upon the broken, ancient chair. They love to think of the

little children whose skilful, tired hands wrought the faded sampler and

whose bright eyes smarted over its innumerable stitches.

Who, for instance, was the May Shore (“Fairy” broidered in a bracket

underneath, was her pet name), who finished yonder elaborate example on

her tenth birthday, the 1st of May--doubtless that is where she got

her name--in the year 1702, and on what far shore does she keep her

birthdays now? None will ever know. She has vanished into the great

sea of mystery whence she came, and there she lives and has her being,

forgotten upon earth, or sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. Did she die young

or old, married or single? Did she ever set _her_ children to work other

samplers, or had she none? was she happy or unhappy, was she homely or

beautiful? Was she a sinner or a saint? Again none will ever know. She

was born on the 1st of May, 1692, and certainly she died on some date

unrecorded. So far as human knowledge goes that is all her history, just

as much or as little as will be left of most of us who breathe to-day

when this earth has completed two hundred and eighteen more revolutions

round the sun.

But the kind of collector alluded to can best be exemplified in the

individual instance of him from whom the manuscript was obtained, of

which a somewhat modernized version is printed on these pages. He has

been dead some years, leaving no kin; and under his will, such of his

motley treasures as it cared to accept went to a local museum, while

the rest and his other property were sold for the benefit of a mystical

brotherhood, for the old fellow was a kind of spiritualist. Therefore,

there is no harm in giving his plebeian name, which was Potts. Mr.

Potts had a small draper’s shop in an undistinguished and rarely visited

country town in the east of England, which shop he ran with the help

of an assistant almost as old and peculiar as himself. Whether he made

anything out of it or whether he lived upon private means is now unknown

and does not matter. Anyway, when there was something of antiquarian

interest or value to be bought, generally he had the money to pay for

it, though at times, in order to do so, he was forced to sell something

else. Indeed these were the only occasions when it was possible to

purchase anything, indifferent hosiery excepted, from Mr. Potts.

Now, I, the Editor, who also love old things, and to whom therefore Mr.

Potts was a sympathetic soul, was aware of this fact and entered into

an arrangement with the peculiar assistant to whom I have alluded, to

advise me of such crises which arose whenever the local bank called Mr.

Potts’s attention to the state of his account. Thus it came about that

one day I received the following letter:--

Sir,

The Guv’nor has gone a bust upon some cracked china, the ugliest that

ever I saw though no judge. So if you want to get that old tall clock at

the first price or any other of his rubbish, I think now is your chance.

Anyhow, keep this dark as per agreement.

Your obedient, Tom.

(He always signed himself Tom, I suppose to mystify, although I believe

his real name was Betterly.)

The result of this epistle was a long and disagreeable bicycle ride in

wet autumn weather, and a visit to the shop of Mr. Potts. Tom, alias

Betterly, who was trying to sell some mysterious undergarments to a fat

old woman, caught sight of me, the Editor aforesaid, and winked. In a

shadowed corner of the shop sat Mr. Potts himself upon a high stool, a

wizened little old man with a bent back, a bald head, and a hooked

nose upon which were set a pair of enormous horn-rimmed spectacles that

accentuated his general resemblance to an owl perched upon the edge of

its nest-hole. He was busily engaged in doing nothing, and in staring

into nothingness as, according to Tom, was his habit when communing with

what he, Tom, called his “dratted speerits.”

“Customer!” said Tom in a harsh voice. “Sorry to disturb you at your

prayers, Guv’nor, but not having two pair of hands I can’t serve a

crowd,” meaning the old woman of the undergarments and myself.

Mr. Potts slid off his stool and prepared for action. When he saw,

however, who the customer was he bristled--that is the only word for it.

The truth is that although between us there was an inward and spiritual

sympathy, there was also an outward and visible hostility. Twice I

had outbid Mr. Potts at a local auction for articles which he desired.

Moreover, after the fashion of every good collector he felt it to be

his duty to hate me as another collector. Lastly, several times I

had offered him smaller sums for antiques upon which he set a certain

monetary value. It is true that long ago I had given up this bargaining

for the reason that Mr. Potts would never take less than he asked.

Indeed he followed the example of the vendor of the Sibylline books in

ancient Rome. He did not destroy the goods indeed after the fashion

of that person and demand the price of all of them for the one that

remained, but invariably he put up his figure by 10 per cent. and

nothing would induce him to take off one farthing.

“What do _you_ want, sir?” he said grumpily. “Vests, hose, collars, or

socks?”

“Oh, socks, I think,” I replied at hazard, thinking that they would

be easiest to carry, whereupon Mr. Potts produced some peculiarly

objectionable and shapeless woollen articles which he almost threw at

me, saying that they were all he had in stock. Now I detest woollen

socks and never wear them. Still, I made a purchase, thinking with

sympathy of my old gardener whose feet they would soon be scratching,

and while the parcel was being tied up, said in an insinuating voice,

“Anything fresh upstairs, Mr. Potts?”

“No, sir,” he answered shortly, “at least, not much, and if there were

what’s the use of showing them to you after the business about that

clock?”

“It was £15 you wanted for it, Mr. Potts?” I asked.

“No, sir, it was £17 and now it’s 10 per cent. on to that; you can work

out the sum for yourself.”

“Well, let’s have another look at it, Mr. Potts,” I replied humbly,

whereon with a grunt and a muttered injunction to Tom to mind the shop,

he led the way upstairs.

Now the house in which Mr. Potts dwelt had once been of considerable

pretensions and was very, very old, Elizabethan, I should think,

although it had been refronted with a horrible stucco to suit modern

tastes. The oak staircase was good though narrow, and led to numerous

small rooms upon two floors above, some of which rooms were panelled

and had oak beams, now whitewashed like the panelling--at least they had

once been whitewashed, probably in the last generation.

These rooms were literally crammed with every sort of old furniture,

most of it decrepit, though for many of the articles dealers would have

given a good price. But at dealers Mr. Potts drew the line; not one of

them had ever set a foot upon that oaken stair. To the attics the place

was filled with this furniture and other articles such as books, china,

samplers with the glass broken, and I know not what besides, piled in

heaps upon the floor. Indeed where Mr. Potts slept was a mystery; either

it must have been under the counter in his shop, or perhaps at nights he

inhabited a worm-eaten Jacobean bedstead which stood in an attic, for

I observed a kind of pathway to it running through a number of legless

chairs, also some dirty blankets between the moth-riddled curtains.

Not far from this bedstead, propped in an intoxicated way against the

sloping wall of the old house, stood the clock which I desired. It was

one of the first “regulator” clocks with a wooden pendulum, used by the

maker himself to check the time-keeping of all his other clocks, and

enclosed in a chaste and perfect mahogany case of the very best style of

its period. So beautiful was it, indeed, that it had been an instance of

“love at first sight” between us, and although there was an estrangement

on the matter of settlements, or in other words over the question of

price, now I felt that never more could that clock and I be parted.

So I agreed to give old Potts the £20 or, to be accurate, £18 14s. which

he asked on the 10 per cent. rise principle, thankful in my heart that

he had not made it more, and prepared to go. As I turned, however, my

eye fell upon a large chest of the almost indestructible yellow cypress

wood of which were made, it is said, the doors of St. Peter’s at Rome

that stood for eight hundred years and, for aught I know, are still

standing, as good as on the day when they were put up.

“Marriage coffer,” said Potts, answering my unspoken question.

“Italian, about 1600?” I suggested.

“May be so, or perhaps Dutch made by Italian artists; but older than

that, for somebody has burnt 1597 on the lid with a hot iron. Not for

sale, not for sale at all, much too good to sell. Just you look inside

it, the old key is tied to the spring lock. Never saw such poker-work in

my life. Gods and goddesses and I don’t know what; and Venus sitting

in the middle in a wreath of flowers with nothing on, and holding two

hearts in her hands, which shows that it was a marriage chest. Once it

was full of some bride’s outfit, sheets and linen and clothes, and God

knows what. I wonder where she has got to to-day. Some place where the

moth don’t eat clothes, I hope. Bought it at the break-up of an

ancient family who fled to Norfolk on the revocation of the Edict of

Nantes--Huguenot, of course. Years ago, years ago! Haven’t looked into

it for many years, indeed, but think there’s nothing there but rubbish

now.”

Thus he mumbled on while he found and untied the old key. The spring

lock had grown stiff from disuse and want of oil, but at length it

turned and reopened the chest revealing the poker-work glories on the

inner side of the lid and elsewhere. Glories they were indeed, never had

I seen such artistry of the sort.

“Can’t see it properly,” muttered Potts, “windows want washing, haven’t

been done since my wife died, and that’s twenty years ago. Miss her

very much, of course, but thank God there’s no spring-cleaning now. The

things I’ve seen broken in spring-cleaning! yes, and lost, too. It was

after one of them that I told my wife that now I understood why the

Mahomedans declare that women have no souls. When she came to understand

what I meant, which it took her a long time to do, we had a row, a

regular row, and she threw a Dresden figure at my head. Luckily I caught

it, having been a cricketer when young. Well, she’s gone now, and no

doubt heaven’s a tidier place than it used to be--that is, if they will

stand her rummagings there, which I doubt. Look at that Venus, ain’t she

a beauty? Might have been done by Titian when his paints ran out, and

he had to take to a hot iron to express his art. What, you can’t see

her well? Wait a bit and I’ll get a lantern. Can’t have a naked candle

here--things too valuable; no money could buy them again. My wife and

I had another row about naked candles, or it may have been a paraffin

lamp. You sit in that old prayer-stool and look at the work.”

Off he went crawling down the dusky stairs and leaving me wondering

what Mrs. Potts, of whom now I heard for the first time, could have been

like. An aggravating woman, I felt sure, for upon whatever points men

differ, as to “spring-cleaning” they are all of one mind. No doubt he

was better without her, for what did that dried-up old artist want with

a wife?

Dismissing Mrs. Potts from my mind, which, to tell the truth, seemed

to have no room for her shadowy and hypothetical entity, I fell to

examining the chest. Oh! it was lovely. In two minutes the clock was

deposed and that chest became the sultana in my seraglio of beauteous

things. The clock had only been the light love of an hour. Here was

the eternal queen, that is, unless there existed a still better chest

somewhere else, and I should happen to find it. Meanwhile, whatever

price that old slave-dealer Potts wanted for it, must be paid to him

even if I had to overdraw my somewhat slender account. Seraglios, of

whatever sort, it must be remembered, are expensive luxuries of the rich

indeed, though, if of antiques, they can be sold again, which cannot be

said of the human kind for who wants to buy a lot of antique frumps?

There were plenty of things in the chest, such as some odds and ends of

tapestry and old clothes of a Queen Anne character, put here, no doubt,

for preservation, as moth does not like this cypress wood. Also there

were some books and a mysterious bundle tied up in a curious shawl with

stripes of colour running through it. That bundle excited me, and I drew

the fringes of the shawl apart and looked in. So far as I could see it

contained another dress of rich colours, also a thick packet of what

looked like parchment, badly prepared and much rotted upon one side

as though by damp, which parchment appeared to be covered with faint

black-letter writing, done by some careless scribe with poor ink that

had faded very much. There were other things, too, within the shawl,

such as a box made of some red foreign wood, but I had not time to

investigate further for just then I heard old Potts’s foot upon the

stair, and thought it best to replace the bundle. He arrived with the

lantern and by its light we examined the chest and the poker work.

“Very nice,” I said, “very nice, though a good deal knocked about.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied with sarcasm, “I suppose you’d like to see it

neat and new after four hundred years of wear, and if so, I think I can

tell you where you can get one to your liking. I made the designs for

it myself five years ago for a fellow who wanted to learn how to

manufacture antiques. He’s in quod now and his antiques are for sale

cheap. I helped to put him there to get him out of the way as a danger

to Society.”

“What’s the price?” I asked with airy detachment.

“Haven’t I told you it ain’t for sale. Wait till I’m dead and come and

buy it at my auction. No, you won’t, though, for it’s going somewhere

else.”

I made no answer but continued my examination while Potts took his

seat on the prayer-stool and seemed to go off into one of his fits of

abstraction.

“Well,” I said at length when decency told me that I could remain no

longer, “if you won’t sell it’s no use my looking. No doubt you want to

keep it for a richer man, and of course you are quite right. Will you

arrange with the carrier about sending the clock, Mr. Potts, and I will

let you have a cheque. Now I must be off, as I’ve ten miles to ride and

it will be dark in an hour.”

“Stop where you are,” said Potts in a hollow voice. “What’s a ride in

the dark compared with a matter like this, even if you haven’t a lamp

and get hauled before your own bench? Stop where you are, I’m listening

to something.”

So I stopped and began to fill my pipe.

“Put that pipe away,” said Potts, coming out of his reverie, “pipes mean

matches; no matches here.”

I obeyed, and he went on thinking till at last what between the chest

and the worm-eaten Jacobean bed and old Potts on the prayer-stool, I

began to feel as if I were being mesmerized. At length he rose and said

in the same hollow voice:

“Young man, you may have that chest, and the price is £50. Now for

heaven’s sake don’t offer me £40, or it will be £100 before you leave

this room.”

“With the contents?” I said casually.

“Yes, with the contents. It’s the contents I’m told you are to have.”

“Look here, Potts,” I said, exasperated, “what the devil do you mean?

There’s no one in this room except you and me, so who can have told you

anything unless it was old Tom downstairs.”

“Tom,” he said with unutterable sarcasm, “Tom! Perhaps you mean the

mawkin that was put up to scare birds from the peas in the garden, for

it has more in its head than Tom. No one here? Oh! what fools some men

are. Why, the place is thick with them.”

“Thick with whom?”

“Who? why, ghosts, of course, as you would call them in your ignorance.

Spirits of the dead I name them. Beautiful enough, too, some of them.

Look at that one there,” and he lifted the lantern and pointed to a pile

of old bed posts of Chippendale design.

“Good day, Potts,” I said hastily.

“Stop where you are,” repeated Potts. “You don’t believe me yet, but

when you are as old as I am you will remember my words and believe--more

than I do and see--clearer than I do, because it’s in your soul, yes,

the seed is in your soul, though as yet it is choked by the world, the

flesh, and the devil. Wait till your sins have brought you trouble; wait

till the fires of trouble have burned the flesh away; wait till you have

sought Light and found Light and live in Light, then you will believe;

_then_ you will see.”

All this he said very solemnly, and standing there in that dusky room

surrounded by the wreck of things that once had been dear to dead men

and women, waving the lantern in his hand and staring--at what was he

staring?--really old Potts looked most impressive. His twisted shape and

ugly countenance became spiritual; he was one who had “found Light and

lived in Light.”

“You won’t believe me,” he went on, “but I pass on to you what a woman

has been telling me. She’s a queer sort of woman; I never saw her

like before, a foreigner and dark-hued with strange rich garments and

something on her head. There, that, _that_,” and he pointed through the

dirty window-place to the crescent of a young moon which appeared in

the sky. “A fine figure of a woman,” he went on, “and oh! heaven, what

eyes--I never saw such eyes before. Big and tender, something like those

of the deer in the park yonder. Proud, too, she is, one who has ruled,

and a lady, though foreign. Well, I never fell in love before, but I

feel like it now, and so would you, young man, if you could see her, and

so I think did someone else in his day.”

“What did she say to you?” I asked, for by now I was interested enough.

Who wouldn’t be when old Potts took to describing beautiful women?

“It’s a little difficult to tell you for she spoke in a strange tongue,

and I had to translate it in my head, as it were. But this is the gist

of it. That you were to have that chest and what was in it. There’s a

writing there, she says, or part of a writing for some has gone--rotted

away. You are to read that writing or to get it read and to print it so

that the world may read it also. She said that ‘Hubert’ wishes you to

do so. I am sure the name was Hubert, though she also spoke of him with

some other title which I do not understand. That’s all I can remember,

except something about a city, yes, a City of Gold and a last great

battle in which Hubert fell, covered with glory and conquering. I

understood that she wanted to talk about that because it isn’t in the

writing, but you interrupted and of course she’s gone. Yes, the price is

£50 and not a farthing less, but you can pay it when you like for I know

you’re as honest as most, and whether you pay it or not, you must have

that chest and what’s in it and no one else.”

“All right,” I said, “but don’t trust it to the carrier. I’ll send a

cart for it to-morrow morning. Lock it now and give me the key.”

In due course the chest arrived, and I examined the bundle for the other

contents do not matter, although some of them were interesting. Pinned

inside the shawl I found a paper, undated and unsigned, but which from

the character and style of the writing was, I should say, penned by a

lady about sixty years ago. It ran thus:--

“My late father, who was such a great traveller in his young days and so

fond of exploring strange places, brought these things home from one of

his journeys before his marriage, I think from South America. He told

me once that the dress was found upon the body of a woman in a tomb and

that she must have been a great lady, for she was surrounded by a number

of other women, perhaps her servants who were brought to be buried with

her here when they died. They were all seated about a stone table at the

end of which were the remains of a man. My father saw the bodies near

the ruins of some forest city, in the tomb over which was heaped a great

mound of earth. That of the lady, which had a kind of shroud made of the

skins of long-wooled sheep wrapped about it as though to preserve the

dress beneath, had been embalmed in some way, which the natives of the

place, wherever it was, told him showed that she was royal. The others

were mere skeletons, held together by the skin, but the man had a long

fair beard and hair still hanging to his skull, and by his side was a

great cross-hilted sword that crumbled to fragments when it was touched,

except the hilt and the knob of amber upon it which had turned almost

black with age. I think my father said that the packet of skins or

parchment of which the underside is badly rotted with damp was set under

the feet of the man. He told me that he gave those who found the tomb a

great deal of money for the dress, gold ornaments, and emerald necklace,

as nothing so perfect had been found before, and the cloth is all worked

with gold thread. My father told me, too, that he did not wish the

things to be sold.”

This was the end of the writing.

Having read it I examined the dress. It was of a sort that I had never

seen before, though experts to whom I have shown it say that it is

certainly South American of a very early date, and like the ornaments,

probably pre-Inca Peruvian. It is full of rich colours such as I have

seen in old Indian shawls which give a general effect of crimson. This

crimson robe clearly was worn over a skirt of linen that had a purple

border. In the box that I have spoken of were the ornaments, all of

plain dull gold: a waist-band; a circlet of gold for the head from which

rose the crescent of the young moon and a necklace of emeralds, uncut

stones now much flawed, for what reason I do not know, but polished and

set rather roughly in red gold. Also there were two rings. Round one

of these a bit of paper was wrapped upon which was written, in another

hand, probably that of the father of the writer of the memorandum:--

“Taken from the first finger of the right hand of a lady’s mummy which I

am sorry, in our circumstances, it was quite impossible to carry away.”

This ring is a broad band of gold with a flat bezel upon which something

was once engraved that owing to long and hard wear now cannot be

distinguished. In short, it appears to be a signet of old European make

but of what age and from what country it is impossible to determine.

The other ring was in a small leathery pouch, elaborately embroidered

in gold thread or very thin wire, which I suppose was part of the lady’s

costume. It is like a very massive wedding ring, but six or eight times

as thick, and engraved all over with an embossed conventional design of

what look like stars with rays round them, or possibly petalled flowers.

Lastly there was the sword-hilt, of which presently.

Such were the trinkets, if so they may be called. They are of little

value intrinsically except for their weight in gold, because, as I have

said, the emeralds are flawed as though they have been through a fire or

some other unknown cause. Moreover, there is about them nothing of the

grace and charm of ancient Egyptian jewellery; evidently they belonged

to a ruder age and civilization. Yet they had, and still have, to my

imagining, a certain dignity of their own.

Also--here I became infected with the spirit of the peculiar

Potts--without doubt these things were rich in human associations. Who

had worn that dress of crimson with the crosses worked on it in gold

wire (they cannot have been Christian crosses), and the purple-bordered

skirt underneath, and the emerald necklace and the golden circlet from

which rose the crescent of the young moon? Apparently a mummy in a tomb,

the mummy of some long-dead lady of a strange and alien race. Was she

such a one as that old lunatic Potts had dreamed he saw standing before

him in the filthy, cumbered upper-chamber of a ruinous house in an

England market town, I wondered, one with great eyes like to those of a

doe and a regal bearing?

No, that was nonsense. Potts had lived with shadows until he believed in

shadows that came out of his own imagination and into it returned again.

Still, she was a woman of some sort, and apparently she had a lover or

a husband, a man with a great fair beard. How at this date, which must

have been remote, did a golden-bearded man come to foregather with a

woman who wore such robes and ornaments as these? And that sword hilt,

worn smooth by handling and with an amber knob? Whence came it? To my

mind--this was before expert examination confirmed my view--it looked

very Norse. I had read the Sagas and I remembered a tale recovered in

them of some bold Norsemen who about the years eight or nine hundred

had wandered to the coast of what is known now to be America--I think a

certain Eric was their captain. Could the fair-haired man in the grave

have been one of these?

Thus I speculated before I looked at the pile of parchments so evidently

prepared from sheep skins by one who had only a very rudimentary

knowledge of how to work such stuff, not knowing that in those

parchments was hid the answer to many of my questions. To these I turned

last of all, for we all shrink from parchments; their contents are

generally so dull. There was a great bundle of them that had been lashed

together with a kind of straw rope, fine straw that reminded me of that

used to make Panama hats. But this had rotted underneath together with

all the bottom part of the parchments, many sheets of them, of which

only fragments remained, covered with dry mould and crumbling. Therefore

the rope was easy to remove and beneath it, holding the sheets in place,

was only some stout and comparatively modern string--it had a red thread

in it that marked it as navy cord of an old pattern.

I slipped these fastenings off and lifted a blank piece of skin set upon

the top. Beneath appeared the first sheet of parchment, closely, very

closely covered with small “black-letter” writing, so faint and faded

that even if I were able to read black-letter, which I cannot, of it

I could have made nothing at all. The thing was hopeless. Doubtless

in that writing lay the key to the mystery, but it could never be

deciphered by me or any one else. The lady with the eyes like a deer had

appeared to old Potts in vain; in vain had she bidden him to hand over

this manuscript to me.

So I thought at the time, not knowing the resources of science.

Afterwards, however, I took that huge bundle to a friend, a learned

friend whose business in life it was and is, to deal with and to

decipher old manuscripts.

“Looks pretty hopeless,” he said, after staring at these. “Still, let’s

have a try; one never knows till one tries.”

Then he went to a cupboard in his muniment room and produced a bottle

full of some straw-coloured fluid into which he dipped an ordinary

painting brush. This charged brush he rubbed backwards and forwards over

the first lines of the writing and waited. Within a minute, before my

astonished eyes, that faint, indistinguishable script turned coal-black,

as black as though it had been written with the best modern ink

yesterday.

“It’s all right,” he said triumphantly, “it’s vegetable ink, and this

stuff has the power to bring it up as it was on the day when it was

used. It will stay like that for a fortnight and then fade away again.

Your manuscript is pretty ancient, my friend, time of Richard II, I

should say, but I can read it easily enough. Look, it begins, ‘I, Hubert

de Hastings, write this in the land of Tavantinsuyu, far from England

where I was born, whither I shall never more return, being a wanderer

as the rune upon the sword of my ancestor, Thorgrimmer, foretold that

I should be, which sword my mother gave me on the day of the burning of

Hastings by the French,’ and so on.” Here he stopped.

“Then for heaven’s sake, do read it,” I said.

“My dear friend,” he answered, “it looks to me as though it would mean

several months’ work, and forgive me for saying that I am paid a salary

for my time. Now I’ll tell you what you have to do. All this stuff

must be treated, sheet by sheet, and when it turns black it must

be photographed before the writing fades once more. Then a skilled

person--so-and-so, or so-and-so, are two names that occur to me--must be

employed to decipher it again, sheet by sheet. It will cost you money,

but I should say that it was worth while. Where the devil is, or was,

the land of Tavantinsuyu?”

“I know,” I answered, glad to be able to show myself superior to my

learned friend in one humble instance. “Tavantinsuyu was the native name

for the Empire of Peru before the Spanish Invasion. But how did this

Hubert get there in the time of Richard II? That is some centuries

earlier than Pizarro set foot upon its shores.”

“Go and find out,” he answered. “It will amuse you for quite a long

while and perhaps the results may meet the expenses of decipherment, if

they are worth publishing. I expect they are not, but then, I have read

so many old manuscripts and found most of them so jolly dull.”

Well, that business was accomplished at a cost that I do not like to

record, and here are the results, more or less modernised, since often

Hubert of Hastings expressed himself in a queer and archaic fashion.

Also sometimes he used Indian words as though he had talked the tongue

of these Peruvians, or rather the Chanca variety of it, so long that he

had begun to forget his own language. Myself I have found his story very

romantic and interesting, and I hope that some others will be of the

same opinion. Let them judge.

But oh, I do wonder what was the end of it, some of which doubtless was

recorded on the rotted sheets though of course there can have been no

account of the great battle in which he fell, since Quilla could not

write at all, least of all in English, though I suppose she survived it

and him.

The only hint of that end is to be found in old Potts’s dream or vision,

and what is the worth of dreams and visions?

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

THE SWORD AND THE RING

I, Hubert of Hastings, write this in the land of Tavantinsuyu, far from

England, where I was born, whither I shall never more return, being

a wanderer as the rune upon the sword of my ancestor, Thorgrimmer,

foretold that I should be, which sword my mother gave me on the day of

the burning of Hastings by the French. I write it with a pen that I have

shaped from a wing feather of the great eagle of the mountains, with ink

that I have made from the juices of certain herbs which I discovered,

and on parchment that I have split from the skins of native sheep, with

my own hands, but badly I fear, though I have seen that art practised

when I was a merchant of the Cheap in London Town.

I will begin at the beginning.

I am the son of a fishing-boat owner and was a trader in the ancient

town of Hastings, and my father was drowned while following his trade

at sea. Afterwards, being the only child left of his, I took on his

business, and on a certain day went out to sea to net fish with two of

my serving men. I was then a young man of about three and twenty years

of age and not uncomely. My hair, which I wore long, was fair in colour

and curled. My eyes, set wide apart, were and still are large and blue,

although they have darkened somewhat and sunk into the head in this land

of heat and sunshine. My nose was wide-nostrilled and large, my mouth

also was over-large, although my mother and some others used to think

it well-shaped. In truth, I was large all over though not so tall, being

burly, with a great breadth of chest and uncommon thickness through the

body, and very strong; so strong that there were few who could throw me

when I was young.

For the rest, like King David, I, who am now so tanned and weather worn

that at a little distance were my hair and beard hidden I might almost

be taken for one of the Indian chiefs about me, was of a ruddy and a

pleasant countenance, perhaps because of my wonderful health, who had

never known a day of sickness, and of an easy nature that often goes

with health. I will add this, for why should I not--that I was no fool,

but one of those who succeed in that upon which they set their minds.

Had I been a fool I should not to-day be the king of a great people and

the husband of their queen; indeed, I should not be alive.

But enough of myself and my appearance in those years that seem as far

off as though they had never been save in the land of dreams.

Now I and my two serving men, sailors both of them like myself and most

of the folk of Hastings set out upon a summer eve, purposing to fish all

night and return at dawn. We came to our chosen ground and cast out the

net, meeting with wonderful fortune since by three in the morning the

big boat was full of every kind of fish. Never before, indeed, had we

made so large a haul.

Looking back at that great catch, as here in this far land it is my

habit to do upon everything, however small, that happened to me in my

youth before I became a wanderer and an exile, I seem to see in it an

omen. For has it not always been my lot in life to be kissed of fortune

and to gather great store, and then of a sudden to lose it all as I was

to lose that rich multitude of fishes?

To-day, when I write this, once more I have great wealth of pomp and

love and power, of gold also, more than I can count. When I go forth, my

armies, who still look on me as half a god, shout their welcome and kiss

the air after their heathen fashion. My beauteous queen bows down to me

and the women of my household abase themselves into the dust. The

people of the Ancient City of Gold turn their faces to the wall and the

children cover their eyes with their hands that they may not look upon

my splendour as I pass, while maidens throw flowers for my feet to

tread. Upon my judgment hangs life or death, and my lightest word is as

though it were spoken from heaven. These and many other things are mine,

the trappings of power, the prerogative of the Lord-from-the-Sea who

brought victory to the Chanca people and led them back to their ancient

home where they might live safe, far from the Inca’s rage.

And yet often, as I sit alone in my splendour upon the roof of the

ancient halls or wander through the starlit palace gardens, I call to

mind that great catch of fishes in the English sea and of what followed

after. I call to mind also my prosperity and wealth as one of the first

merchants of London Town and what followed after. I call to mind, too,

the winning of Blanche Aleys, the lady so far above me in rank and

station and what followed after. Then it is that I grow afraid of what

may follow after this present hour of peace and love and plenty.

Certainly one thing will follow, and that is death. It may come late

or it may come soon. But yesterday a rumour reached me through my spies

that Kari Upanqui, the Inca of Tavantinsuyu, he who once was as my

brother, but who now hates me because of his superstitions, and because

I took a Virgin of the Sun to be my wife, gathers a great host to follow

on the path we trod many years ago when the Chancas fled from the Inca

tyranny back to their home in the ancient City of Gold and to smite us

here. That host, said the rumours, cannot march till next year, and then

will be another year upon its journey. Still, knowing Kari, I am sure

that it will march, yes, and arrive, after which must befall the great

battle in the mountain passes wherein, as of old, I shall lead the

Chanca armies.

Perchance I am doomed to fall in that battle. Does not the rune upon

Wave-Flame, the sword of Thorgrimmer my ancestor, say of him that holds

it that,

“Conquering, conquered shall he be,

And far away shall sleep with me”?

Well, if the Chancas conquer, what care I if I am conquered? ‘Twould be

a good death and a clean, to fall by Kari’s spear, if I knew that Kari

and his host fell also, as I swear that fall they shall, St. Hubert

helping me. Then at least Quilla and her children would live on in peace

and greatness since they can have no other foe to fear.

Death, what is death? I say that it is the hope of every one of us and

most of all the exile and the wanderer. At the best it may be glory; at

the worst it must be sleep. Moreover, am I so happy that I should fear

to die? Quilla cannot read this writing, and therefore I will answer,

No. I am a Christian, but she and those about her, aye, my own children

with them, worship the moon and the host of heaven. I am white-skinned,

they are the hue of copper, though it is true that my little daughter,

Gudruda, whom I named so after my mother, is almost white. There are

secrets in their hearts that I shall never learn and there are secrets

in mine from which they cannot draw the veil because our bloods are

different. Yet God knows, I love them well enough, and most of all that

greatest of women, Quilla.

Oh! the truth is that here on earth there is no happiness for man.

It is because of this rumour of the coming of Kari with his host that I

set myself to this task, that I have long had in my mind, to write down

something of my history, both in England and in this land which, at any

rate for hundreds of years, mine is the first white foot to press. It

seems a foolish thing to do since when I have written who will read, and

what will chance to that which I have written? I shall leave orders that

it be placed beneath my feet in the tomb, but who will ever find that

tomb again? Still I write because something in my heart urges me to the

task.

I return to the far-off days. Our boat being full with merry hearts we

set sail before a faint wind for Hastings beach. As yet there was little

light and much fog, still the landward breeze was enough to draw us

forward. Then of a sudden we heard sounds as of men talking upon ships

and the clank of spars and blocks. Presently came a puff of air lifting

the fog for a little and we saw that we were in the midst of a

great fleet, a French fleet, for the Lilies of France flew at their

mast-heads, saw, too, that their prows were set for Hastings, though

for the while they were becalmed, since the wind that was enough for our

light, large-sailed fishing-boat could not stir their bulk. Moreover,

they saw us, for the men-at-arms on the nearest ship shouted threats and

curses at us and followed the shouts with arrows that almost hit us.

Then the fog closed down again, and in it we slipped through the French

fleet.

It may have been the best part of an hour later that we reached

Hastings. Before the boat was made fast to the jetty, I sprang to it

shouting:

“Stir! stir! the French are upon you! To arms! We have slipped through a

whole fleet of them in the mist.”

Instantly the sleepy quay seemed to awaken. From the neighbouring fish

market, from everywhere sailormen and others came running, followed by

children with gaping mouths, while from the doors of houses far away

shot women with scared faces, like ferreted rabbits from their burrows.

In a minute the crowd had surrounded me, all asking questions at once in

such a fashion that I could only answer them with my cry of:

“Stir! the French are upon you. To arms, I say. To arms!”

Presently through the throng advanced an old white-bearded man who wore

a badge of office, crying as he came, “Make way for the bailiff!”

The crowd obeyed, opening a path, and soon we were face to face.

“What is it, Hubert of Hastings?” he asked. “Is there fire that you

shout so loudly?”

“Aye, Worship,” I answered. “Fire and murder and all the gifts that the

French have for England. The Fleet of France is beating up for Hastings,

fifty sail of them or more. We crept through them in the fog, for the

wind which would scarce move them served our turn and beyond an arrow or

two, they took no note of a fishing-boat.”

“Whence come they?” asked the bailiff, bewildered.

“I know not, but those in another boat we passed in the midst shouted

that these French were ravaging the coast and heading for Hastings

to put it to fire and sword. Then that boat vanished away, I know not

where, and that is all I have to tell save that the French will be here

within an hour.”

Without staying to ask more questions, the bailiff turned and ran

towards the town, and presently the alarm bells rang out from the towers

of All Saints and St. Clement’s, while criers summoned all men to the

market-place. Meanwhile I, not without a sad look at my boat and the

rich catch within, made my way into the town, followed by my two men.

Presently I reached an ancient, timbered house, long, low, and rambling,

with a yard by its side full of barrels, anchors, and other marine

stores such as rope, that had to do with the trade I carried on at this

place.

I, Hubert, with a mind full of fears, though not for myself, and a

stirring of the blood such as was natural to my age at the approach

of my first taste of battle, ran fast up to that house which I have

described, and paused for a moment by the big elm tree that grew in

front of the door, of which the lower boughs were sawn off because they

shut out the light from the windows. I remember that elm tree very

well, first because when I was a child starlings nested in a hole in the

trunk, and I reared one in a wicker cage and made a talking bird of it

which I kept for several years. It was so tame that it used to go about

sitting on my shoulder, till at last, outside the town a cat frightened

it thence, and before I could recapture it, it was taken by a hawk,

which hawk I shot afterwards with an arrow out of revenge.

Also this elm is impressed upon me by the fact that on that morning when

I halted by it, I noted how green and full of leaf it was. Next morning,

after the fire, I saw it again, all charred and blackened, with its

beautiful foliage withered by the heat. This contrast remained upon my

memory, and whenever I see any great change of fortune from prosperity

to ruin, or from life to death, always I bethink me of that elm. For

it is by little things which we ourselves have seen and not by those

written of or told by others, that we measure and compare events.

The reason that I ran so hard and then paused by the elm, was because

my widowed mother lived in that house. Knowing that the French meant

mischief for a good reason, because one of their arrows, or perhaps a

quarrel from a cross-bow, whistled just past my head out there upon the

sea, my first thought was to get her away to some place of safety, no

easy task seeing that she was infirm with age. My second, that which

caused me to pause by the tree, was how I should break the news to her

in such a fashion that she would not be over-frightened. Having thought

this over I went on into the house.

The door opened into the sitting-room that had a low roof of plaster and

big oak beams. There I found my mother kneeling by the table upon which

food was set for breakfast: fried herrings, cold meat, and a jug of ale.

She was saying her prayers after her custom, being very religious

though in a new fashion, since she was a follower of a preacher called

Wycliffe, who troubled the Church in those days. She seemed to have gone

to sleep at her prayers, and I watched her for a moment, hesitating to

waken her. My mother, as even then I noted, was a very handsome woman,

though old, for I was born when she had been married twenty years or

more, with white hair and well-cut features that showed the good blood

of which she came, for she was better bred than my father and quarrelled

with her kin to marry him.

At the sound of my footsteps she woke up and saw me.

“Strange,” she said, “I slept at my prayers who did so little last

night, as has become a habit with me when you are out a-fishing, for

which God forgive me, and dreamed that there was some trouble forward.

Scold me not, Hubert, for when the sea has taken the father and two

sons, it is scarcely wonderful that I should be fearful for the last of

my blood. Help me to rise, Hubert, for this water seems to gather in my

limbs and makes them heavy. One day, the leech says, it will get to the

heart and then all will be over.”

I obeyed, first kissing her on the brow, and when she was seated in her

armed chair by the table, I said,

“You dream too well, Mother. There is trouble. Hark! St. Clement’s

bells are talking of it. The French come to visit Hastings. I know for I

sailed through their fleet just after dawn.”

“Is it so?” she asked quietly. “I feared worse. I feared lest the dream

meant that you had gone to join your brothers in the deep. Well, the

French are not here yet, as thank God you are. So eat and drink, for we

of England fight best on full bellies.”

Again I obeyed who was very hungry after that long night and needed food

and ale, and as I swallowed them we heard the sound of folk shouting and

running.

“You are in haste, Hubert, to join the others on the quay and send

a Frenchman or two to hell with that big bow of yours?” she said

inquiringly.

“Nay,” I answered, “I am in haste to get you out of this town, which I

fear may be burnt. There is a certain cave up yonder by the Minnes Rock

where I think you might lie safe, Mother.”

“It has come down to me from my fathers, Hubert, that it was never the

fashion of the women of the north to keep their men to shield them when

duty called them otherwhere. I am helpless in my limbs and heavy, and

cannot climb, or be borne up yonder hill to any cave. Here I stop where

I have dwelt these five-and-forty years, to live or die as God pleases.

Get you to your duty, man. Stay. Call those wenches and bid them fly

inland to their folk, out Burwash way. They are young and fleet of foot,

and no Frenchman will catch them.”

I summoned the girls who were staring, white-faced, from the attic

window-place. In three minutes they were gone, though it is true that

one of them, the braver, wished to bide with her mistress.

I watched them start up the street with other fugitives who were pouring

out of Hastings, and came back to my mother. As I did so a great shout

told me that the French fleet had been sighted.

“Hubert,” she said, “take this key and go to the oak chest in my

sleeping room, lift out the linen at the top and bring me that which

lies wrapped in cloth beneath.”

I did so, returning with a bundle that was long and thin. With a knife

she cut the string that tied it. Within were a bag of money and a sword

in an ancient scabbard covered with a rough skin which I took to be that

of a shark, which scabbard in parts was inlaid with gold.

“Draw it,” said my mother.

I did so, and there came to light a two-edged blade of blue steel,

such as I had never seen before, for on the blade were engraved strange

characters whereof I could make nothing, although as it chanced I could

read and write, having been taught by the monks in my childhood. The

hilt, also, that was in the form of a cross, had gold inlaid upon it;

at the top of it, a large knob or apple of amber, much worn by handling.

For the rest it was a beauteous weapon and well balanced.

“What of this sword?” I asked.

“This, Son. With the black bow that you have,” and she pointed to the

case that leaned against the table, “it has come down in my family

for many generations. My father told me that it was the sword of one

Thorgrimmer, his ancestor, a Norseman, a Viking he called him, who came

with those who took England before the Norman time; which I can well

believe since my father’s name, like mine, till I married, was Grimmer.

This sword, also, has a name and it is Wave-Flame. With it, the tale

tells, Thorgrimmer did great deeds, slaying many after their heathen

fashion in his battles by land and sea. For he was a wanderer, and it is

said of him that once he sailed to a new land far across the ocean, and

won home again after many strange adventures, to die at last here in

England in some fray. That is all I know, save that a learned man from

the north once told my father’s father that the writing on the sword

means:--

“He who lifts Wave-Flame on high

In love shall live and in battle die;

Storm-tossed o’er wide seas shall roam

And in strange lands shall make his home.

Conquering, conquered shall he be,

And far away shall sleep with me.

“Those were the words which I remember because of the jingle of them;

also because such seems to have been the fate of Thorgrimmer and the

sword that his grandson took from his tomb.”

Here I would have asked about this grandson and the tomb, but having no

time, held my peace.

“All my life have I kept that sword,” went on my mother, “not giving it

to your father or brothers, lest the fate written on it should befall

them, for those old wizards of the north, who fashioned such weapons

with toil and skill, could foresee the future--as at times I can, for

it is in my blood. Yet now I am moved to bid you take it, Hubert, and go

where its flame leads you and dree your gloom, whatever it may be, for I

know you will use it like Thorgrimmer’s self.”

She paused for a moment, then went on:

“Hubert, perhaps we part for the last time, for I think that my hour

is at hand. But let not that trouble you, since I am glad to go to join

those who went before, and others with them, perchance Thorgrimmer’s

self. Hearken, Hubert. If aught befalls me, or this place, stay not

here. Go to London town and seek out John Grimmer, my brother, the rich

merchant and goldsmith who dwells in the place called Cheap. He knew you

as a child and loved you, and lacking offspring of his own will welcome

you for both our sakes. My father would not give John the sword lest its

fate should be on him, but I say that John will be glad to welcome one

of our race who holds it in his hand. Take it then, and with it that bag

of gold, which may prove of service ere all be done.

“Aye, and there is one more thing--this ring which, so says the tale,

came down with the sword and the bow, and once had writing on it like

the sword, though that is long since rubbed away. Take it and wear it

till perchance, in some day to come, you give it to another as I did.”

Wondering at all this tale which, after her secret fashion, my mother

had kept from me till that hour, I set the ring upon my finger.

“I gave yonder ring to your father on the day that we were betrothed,”

went on my mother, “and I took it back again from his corpse after he

had been found floating in the sea. Now I pass it on to you who soon

will be all that is left of both of us.”

“Hark!” she continued, “the crier summons all men with their arms to the

market-place to fight England’s foes. Therefore one word more while I

buckle the sword Wave-Flame on to you, as doubtless his women folk did

on to Thorgrimmer, your ancestor. My blessing on you, Hubert. Be you

such a one as Thorgrimmer was, for we of the Norse blood desire that

our loves and sons should prove not backward when swords are aloft

and arrows fly. But be you more than he, be you a Christian also,

remembering that however long you live, and the Battle-maidens have not

marked you yet, at last you must die and give account.

“Hubert, you are such a one as women will love; one, too, who, I fear

me, will be a lover of women, for that weakness goes with strength and

manhood by Nature’s laws. Be careful of women, Hubert, and if you may,

choose those who are not false and cling to her who is most true. Oh,

you will wander far; I read it in your eyes that you will wander far,

yet shall your heart stay English. Kiss me and begone! Lad, are you

forgetting your spare arrows and the bull-hide jerkin that was your

father’s? You will want them both to-day. Farewell, farewell! God and

His Christ be with you--and shoot you straight and smite you hard. Nay,

no tears, lest my eyes should be dimmed, for I’ll climb to the attic and

watch you fight.”

CHAPTER II

THE LADY BLANCHE

So I went, with a sore heart, for I remembered that when my father and

brothers were drowned, although I was then but a little one, my mother

had foreseen it, and I feared much lest it might be thus in her own case

also. I loved my mother. She was a stern woman, it was true, with little

softness about her, which I think came with her blood, but she had a

high heart, and oh! her last words were noble. Yet through it all I

was pleased, as any young man would have been, with the gift of the

wonderful sword which once had been that of Thorgrimmer, the sea-rover,

whose blood ran in my body against which it lay, and I hoped that

this day I might have chance to use it worthily as Thorgrimmer did in

forgotten battles. Having imagination, I wondered also whether the sword

knew that after its long sleep it had come forth again to drink the

blood of foes.

Also I was pleased with another thing, namely, that my mother had

told me that I should live my life and not die that day by the hand

of Frenchmen; and that in my life I should find love, of which to tell

truth already I knew a little of a humble sort, for I was a comely

youth, and women did not run away from me, or if they did, soon they

stopped. I wanted to live my life, I wanted to see great adventures and

to win great love. The only part of the business which was not to my

taste was that command of my mother’s, that I should go to London to sit

in a goldsmith’s shop. Still, I had heard that there was much to be seen

in London, and at least it would be different from Hastings.

The street outside our doors was crowded with folk, some of the men

making their way to the market-place, about whom hung women and children

weeping; others, old people, wives and girls and little ones fleeing

from the town. I found the two sailormen who had been with me on the

boat, waiting for me. They were brawny fellows named Jack Grieves and

William Bull, who had been in our service since my childhood, good

fishermen and fighters both; indeed one of them, William Bull, had

served in the French wars.

“We knew that you were coming, Master, so we bided here for you,” said

William, who having once been an archer was armed with a bow and a short

sword, whereas Jack had only an axe, also a knife such as we used on the

smacks for cleaning fish.

I nodded, and we went on to the market-place and joined the throng of

men, a vast number of them, who were gathered there to defend Hastings

and their homes. Nor were we too soon, for the French ships were already

beaching within a few yards of the shore or on it, their draught being

but small, while the sailors and men-at-arms were pushing off in small

boats or wading to the strand.

There was great confusion in the market-place, for as is common in

England, no preparation had been made against attack though such was

always to be feared.

The bailiff ran about shouting orders, as did others, but proper

officers were lacking, so that in the end men acted as the fancy took

them. Some went down towards the beach and shot with arrows at the

Frenchmen. Others took refuge in houses, others stood irresolute,

waiting, knowing not which way to turn. I and my two men were with those

who went on to the beach where I loosed some arrows from my big black

bow, and saw a man fall before one of them.

But we could do little or nothing, for these Frenchmen were trained

soldiers under proper command. They formed themselves into companies

and advanced, and we were driven back. I stopped as long as I dared,

and drawing the sword, Wave-Flame, fought with a Frenchman who was in

advance of the others. What is more, making a great blow at his head

which I missed, I struck him on the arm and cut it off, for I saw it

fall to the ground. Then others rushed up at me and I fled to save my

life.

Somehow I found myself being pressed up the steep Castle Hill with a

number of Hastings folk, followed by the French. We reached the Castle

and got into it, but the old portcullis would not close, and in sundry

places the walls were broken down. Here we found a number of women who

had climbed for refuge, thinking that the place would be safe. Among

these was a beautiful and high-born maiden whom I knew by sight. Her

father was Sir Robert Aleys who, I believe, was then the Warden of the

Castle of Pevensey, and she was named the lady Blanche. Once, indeed, I

had spoken with her on an occasion too long to tell. Then her large blue

eyes, which she knew well how to use, had left me with a swimming head,

for she was very fair and very sweet and gracious, with a most soft

voice, and quite unlike any other woman I had ever seen, nor did she

seem at all proud. Soon her father, an old knight, who had no name for

gentleness in the countryside, but was said to be a great lover of gold,

had come up and swept her away, asking her what she did, talking with a

common fishing churl. This had happened some months before.

Well, there I found her in the Castle, alone it seemed, and knowing me

again, which I thought strange, she ran to me, praying me to protect

her. More, she began to tell me some long tale, to which I had not time

to listen, of how she had come to Hastings with her father, Sir Robert,

and a young lord named Deleroy, who, I understood, was some kinsman of

hers, and slept there. How, too, she had been separated from them in the

throng when they were attempting to return to Pevensey which her father

must go to guard, because her horse was frightened and ran away, and

of how finally men took her by the arm and brought her to this castle,

saying that it was the safest place.

“Then here you must bide, Lady Blanche,” I answered, cutting her short.

“Cling to me and I will save you if I can, even if it costs me my life.”

Certainly she did cling to me for all the rest of that terrible day, as

will be seen.

From this height we saw Hastings beginning to burn, for the Frenchmen

had fired the town in sundry places, and being built of wood, it burnt

furiously. Also we saw and heard horrible scenes and sounds of rapine,

such as chance in this Christian world of ours where a savage foe finds

peaceful folk of another race at his mercy. In the houses people were

burnt; in the streets they were being murdered, or worse. Yes, even

children were murdered, for afterwards I saw the bodies of some of them.

Awhile later through the wreaths of smoke we perceived companies of the

French advancing to attack the Castle. There may have been three hundred

of them in all, and we did not count more than fifty men, some of

us ill-armed, together with a mob of aged people and many women and

children. What had become of the other men I do not know, but orders

had been shouted from all quarters, and some had gone this way and some

that. Some, too, I think, had fled, lacking leaders.

The French having climbed the hill, began to attack our ill-fenced

gateways, bringing up beams of timber to force them in. Those of us who

had bows shot some of them, though, their armour being good, for the

most part the arrows glanced. But few had bows. Moreover, whenever we

showed ourselves they poured such a rain of quarrels and other shafts

upon us that we could not face it, lacking mail as we did, and a number

of us were killed or wounded. At last they forced the easternmost gate

which was the weakest, and got in there and over a place in the wall

were it was broken. We fought them as well as we could; myself I cut

down two with the sword, Wave-Flame, hewing right through the helm of

one, for the steel of that sword was good. Here, too, Jack Grieves was

killed by my side by a pike thrust, and died calling to me to fight on

for old England and Hastings town; after which he said something about

beer and breathed his last.

The end of it was that those who were left were driven out of the Castle

together with the women and children, the murdering French killing every

man who fell wounded where he lay, and trying to make prisoner any women

they thought young and fair enough. Especially did they seek to capture

the lady Blanche because they saw that she was beautiful and of high

station. But by good fortune more than aught else, I saved her from this

fate.

As it chanced we were among the last to leave the Castle, whence, to

tell the truth, I was loath to go, for by now my blood was up, and with

a few others fought till I was driven out. I prayed the lady Blanche to

run forward with the other women. But she would not, answering that she

trusted no one else, but would stay to die with me, as though that would

help either of us.

Thus it came about that a tall French knight who had set his eyes on

her, outclimbed his fellows upon the slope of the hill, for they were

weary and gathering to re-form, and catching her round the middle,

strove to drag her away. I fell on him and we fought. He had fine armour

and a shield while I had none, but I held the long sword while he only

wielded a battle-axe. I knew that if he could get in a blow with that

battle-axe, I was sped, since the bull’s hide of my jerkin would never

stand against it. Therefore it was my business to keep out of his reach.

This, being young and active, for the most part I made shift to do,

especially as he could not move very quickly in his mail. The end of it

was that I cut him on the arm through a joint in his harness, whereon he

rushed at me, swearing French oaths.

I leapt on one side and as he passed, smote with all my strength. The

blow fell between neck and shoulder, from behind as it were, and such

was the temper of that sword named Wave-Flame that it shore through his

mail deep into the flesh beneath, to the backbone as I believe. At least

he went down in a heap--I remember the rattle of his armour as he fell,

and there lay still. Then we fled on down the steep path, I holding the

bloody sword with one hand and Lady Blanche with the other, while she

thanked me with her eyes.

At length we were in the town again, running up my own street. On either

side of us the houses burned, and behind us came another body of the

French. The reek got into our eyes and we stumbled over dead or fainting

people.

Looking to the left I caught sight of the elm tree of which I have

spoken, that grew in front of our door, and saw that the house behind

it was burning. Yes, and I saw more, for at the attic window, which was

open, the flames making an arch round her, sat my mother. Moreover, she

was singing for I heard her voice and the wild words she sang, though

this was a strange thing for a woman to do in the hour of such a death.

Further, she saw and knew me, for she waved her hands to me, then

pointed towards the sea, why, I did not guess at the time. I stopped,

purposing to try to rescue her though the front of the house was

flaming, and the attempt must have ended in my death. But at that moment

the roof fell in, causing the fire to spout upwards and outwards. This

was the last that I saw of my mother, though afterwards we found her

body and gave it burial with those of many other victims.

There was no time to stay, for the conquering French were pouring up the

street behind us, shooting as they came and murdering any laggards whom

they could catch. On we went up the steep slope of the Minnes Rock. I

would have fled on into the open country, but the lady Blanche had no

strength left. Twice she sank to the ground, stricken with terror and

weariness, and each time prayed me not to leave her; nor indeed did I

wish to do so. The end of it was that William Bull and I between us

half carried her with much toil to the cave of which I had spoken to my

mother. The task was heavy and slow, since always we must scramble over

sheer ground. What is more, a party of the French, seeing our plight,

followed us. Perhaps some of them guessed who the lady was, for there

were many spies in Hastings who might have told them, and desired to

capture and hold her to ransom.

At the least they came on after us and a few others, women all of them,

who had joined our company, being unable to travel further, or trusting

to William Bull and myself to protect them.

We reached the cave, and thrusting the women along it, William and I

stood in the mouth and waited. He had no bow and all my arrows were gone

save three, but of these I, who was noted for my archery, determined

to make the best use I could. So I drew them out, and having strung

the bow, sat down to get my breath. On came the French, shouting and

jabbering at us to the effect that they would cut our throats and carry

off _la belle dame_ to be their sport.

“She shall be mine!” yelled a big fellow with a flattened nose and a

wide mouth who was ahead of the others, and not more than fifty yards

away.

I rose, and praying my patron, good St. Hubert after whom I was named

because I first saw light upon his day, the 23rd of November, to give

me skill, I drew the great bow to my ear, aimed, and loosed. Nor did

St. Hubert, a lover of fine shooting, fail me in my need, for that arrow

rushed out and found its home in the big mouth of the Frenchman, through

which it passed, pinning his foul tongue to his neck bone.

Down he went, and cheered by the sight I refitted and loosed at the

next. Him, too, the arrow caught, so that he fell almost on the other.

I set the third and last arrow on the string and waited a space. Behind

these two was a squat, broad man, a knight I suppose, for he wore

armour, and had a shield with a cock painted on it. This man, frightened

by the fate of his companions, yet not minded to give up the venture

for those in rear of him urged him on, bent himself almost double, and

holding the shield over his helm which was closed, so as to protect his

head and body, came on at a good pace.

I waited till he was within five-and-twenty yards or so, hoping that

the roughness of the ground would cause him to stumble and the shield to

shift so that I could get a chance at him behind it. But I did not, so

at last, again praying to St. Hubert, I drew the big bow till the string

touched my ear, and let drive. The shaft, pointed with tempered steel,

struck the shield full in the centre, and by Heaven, pierced it, aye,

and the mail behind, aye, and the flesh it covered, so that he, too, got

his death.

“A great shot, Master,” said William, “that no other bow in Hastings

could have sped.”

“Not so ill,” I answered, “but it is my last. Now we must fight as we

can with sword and axe until we be sped.”

William nodded, and the women in the cave began to wail while I unstrung

my bow and set it in its case, from habit I think, seeing that I never

hoped to look upon it again.

Just then from the French ships in the harbour there came a great

blaring of trumpets giving some alarm, and the Frenchmen of a sudden,

ceasing from their attack, turned and ran towards the shore. I stepped

out of the cave with William and looked. There on the sea, drawing near

from the east before a good wind, I saw ships, and saw, too, that from

their masts flew the pennons of England, for the golden leopards gleamed

in the sun.

“It is our fleet, William,” I said, “come to talk with these French.”

“Then I would that it had come sooner,” answered William. “Still, better

now than not at all.”

Thus were we saved, through Hamo de Offyngton, the Abbot of Battle

Abbey, or so I was told afterwards, who collected a force by land and

sea and drove off the French after they had ravaged the Isle of Wight,

attacked Winchelsea, and burned the greater part of Hastings. So it

came about that in the end these pirates took little benefit by their

wickedness, since they lost sundry ships with all on board, and others

left in such haste that their people remained on shore where they were

slain by the mob that gathered as soon as it was seen that they were

deserted, helped by a company of the Abbot’s men who had marched from

Battle. But with all this I had nothing to do who now that the fight

was over, felt weak as a child and could think of little save that I had

seen my mother burning.

Presently, however, that happened which woke me from my grief and caused

my blood which had grown sluggish to run again. For when she knew that

she was safe the lady Blanche came out of the cave and addressed me as I

stood there leaning against the rock with the red sword Wave-Flame in my

hand, as I had drawn it to make ready for the last fight to the death.

All sorts of sweet names she called me--a hero, her deliverer, and I

know not what besides.

In the end, as I made no answer, being dazed, also hurt by an axe blow

on the breast which I had not felt before, dealt by that Frenchman whom

I slew near the Castle, she did more. Throwing her arms about me she

kissed me thrice, on either cheek and on the lips, doubtless because she

was overwrought, and in her thankfulness forgot her maidenly reserve,

though as William Bull said afterwards, this forgetfulness did not cause

her to kiss him who had also helped her up the hill.

Those kisses were like wine to me, for it is strange how, if we love

her, by the decree of Nature the touch of a beautiful woman’s lips, felt

for the first time, affects us in our youth. Whatever else we forget,

that we always remember, however false those lips afterwards be proved.

For then the wax is soft and the die sinks deep, so deep that no

after-heats can melt its stamp and no fretting wear it out while we live

beneath the sun.

Now my young blood being awakened, I was minded to return those kisses,

and began to do so with a Jew’s interest, when I heard a rough voice

swearing many strange oaths, and heard also the other women who had

sheltered with us in the cave begin to titter, for the moment forgetting

all their private woes, as those of their sex will do when there is

kissing in the wind.

“God’s blood!” said the rough voice, “who is this that handles my

daughter as though they had been but an hour wed? Take those lips of

yours from her, fellow, or I’ll cut them from your chops.”

I looked round astonished, to see Sir Robert Aleys mounted on a grey

horse, and followed by a company of men-at-arms who appeared to be under

the command of a well-favoured, dark-eyed young captain with long hair,

and dressed more wondrously than any man I had ever seen before. Had he

put on Joseph’s coat over his mail, he could not have worn more colours,

and I noted that the toes of his shoes curled up so high that I wondered

however he worked them through his stirrups, and what would happen to

him if by chance he were unhorsed.

Being taken aback I made no answer, but William Bull, who, if a rough

fellow, had a tongue in his head and a ready wit, spoke up for me.

“If you want to know,” he said in his Sussex drawl, “I’ll tell you who

he is, Sir Robert Aleys. He is my worshipful master, Hubert of Hastings,

ship-owner, householder, and trader of this town. Or at least he was

these things, but now it seems that his ships and house are burnt and

his mother with them; also that there will be no trade in Hastings for

many a day.”

“Mayhap,” answered Sir Robert, adding other oaths, “but why does he buss

my daughter?”

“Perchance because he must give as good as he got, which is a law among

honest merchants, noble Sir Robert. Or perchance because he has a better

right to buss her than any man alive, seeing that but for him, by now

she would be but stinking clay, or a Frenchman’s leman.”

Here the fine young captain cut in, saying,

“Whatever else this worshipful trader may need, he does not lack a

trumpeter.”

“That is so, my Lord Deleroy,” replied William, unmoved, “for when I

find a good song I like to sing it. Go now and look at those three men

who lie yonder on the slope, and see whether the arrows in them bear my

master’s mark. Go also and look upon the Castle hill and find a knight

with his head well-nigh hewn from his shoulders, and see whether yonder

sword fits into the cut. Aye, and at others that I could tell you of,

slain, every one of them, to save this fair lady. Aye, go you whose

garments are so fine and unstained, and then come back and talk of

trumpeters.”

“Pish!” said my Lord Deleroy with a shrug of his shoulders, “a lady who

is over-wrought and hangs to some common fellow, like one who kisses the

feet of a wooden saint that she thinks has saved her from calamity!”

At these words I, who had been listening like a man in a dream, awoke,

as it were, for they stung me. Moreover, I had heard that this fine

Deleroy was one of those who owed his place and rank to the King’s

favour, as he did his high name, being, it was reported, by birth but a

prince’s bastard sprung from some relative of Sir Robert whom therefore

he called cousin.

“Sir,” I said, “you know best whether I am more common than you are.

Let that be. At least I hold in my hand the sword of one who begat my

forefather hundreds of years ago, a certain Thorgrimmer who was great in

his time. Now I have had my fill of fighting to-day, and you, doubtless

through no fault of your own, have had none; you also are clad in mail

and I, a common fellow, have none. Deign then to descend from that horse

and take a turn with me though I be tired, and thus prove my commonness

upon my body. Of your nobility do this, seeing that after all we are of

one flesh.”

Now, stung in his turn, he made as though he would do what I prayed,

when for the first time, after glancing at her father who sat

still--puzzled, it would seem--the lady Blanche spoke.

“Be not mad, Cousin,” she said. “I tell you that this gentleman has

saved my life and honour, twice at least to-day. Is it wonderful, then,

if I thanked him in the best fashion that a woman can, and thus brought

your insults on him?”

He hesitated, though one of his curled-up shoes was out of the stirrup,

when suddenly Sir Robert broke in in his big voice, saying:

“God’s truth, Cousin, I think that you will do well to leave this young

cock alone, since I like not the look of that red spur of his,” and he

glanced at the sword Wave-Flame. “Though he be weary, he may have a kick

or two in him yet.”

Then he turned to me and added:

“Sir, you have fought well; many a man has earned knighthood for less,

and if a fair maid thanked you in her own fashion, you are not to blame.

I, her father, also thank you and wish you all good fortune till we meet

again. Farewell. Daughter, make shift to share this horse with me, and

let us away out of this stricken town to Pevensey, where perchance it

will please those French to call to-morrow.”

A minute later they were gone, and I noted with a pang that as they went

the lady Blanche, having waved her good-bye to me, talked fast to her

cousin Deleroy and that he held her hand to steady her upon her father’s

horse.

CHAPTER III

HUBERT COMES TO LONDON

When the lady Blanche was out of sight, followed by the women who had

sheltered with us in the cave, William and I went to a stream we knew of

not far away and drank our fill. Then we walked to the three whom I had

shot with my big bow, hoping to regain the arrows, for I had none left.

This, however, could not be done though all the men were dead, for one

of the shafts, the last, was broken, and the other two were so fixed in

flesh and bone that only a surgeon’s saw would loose them.

So we left them where they were, and before the men were buried many

came to marvel at the sight, thinking it a wonderful thing that I should

have killed these three with three arrows, and that any bow which arm

might bend could have driven the last of them through an iron shield and

a breastplate behind it.

This armour, I should tell, William took for himself, since it was of

his size. Also on the morrow, returning to the Castle Hill, I stripped

the knight whom I had slain with the sword, Wave-Flame, of his splendid

Milan mail, whereof the _plastron_, or breast-plate, was inlaid with

gold, having over it a _camail_ of chain to cover the joints, through

which my good sword had shorn into his neck. The cognizance on his

shield strangely enough was three barbed arrows, but what was the name

of the knight who bore it I never learned. This mail, which must have

cost a great sum, the Bailiff of Hastings granted me to keep, since I

had slain its wearer and borne myself well in the fight. Moreover, I

took the three arrows for my own cognizance, though in truth I had no

right to any, being in those days but a trader. (Little did I know then

how well this mail was to serve me in the after years.)

By now night was coming on, and as we could see from the cave mouth

that the part of Hastings which lies towards the village of St. Leonards

seemed to have escaped the fire, thitherward we went by the beach to

avoid the heat and falling timbers in the burning town. On our way we

met others and from them heard all that had befallen. It would seem that

the French loss in life was heavier than our own, since many of them

were cut off when they tried to fly to their ships, and some of these

could not be floated from the beach or were rammed and sunk with all

aboard by the English vessels. But the damage done to Hastings was as

much as could scarcely be made good in a generation, for the most of it

was burnt or burning. Also many, like my own mother, had perished in

the fire, being sick or aged or in childbed, or for this reason and that

forgotten and unable to move. Indeed on the beach were hundreds of

folk in despair, nor was it only the women and children who wept that

evening.

For my part, with William I went beyond the burning to the house of a

certain old priest who was my confessor, and the friend of my father

before me, and there we found food and slept, he returning thanks to God

for my escape and offering me consolation for the loss of my mother and

goods.

I rested but ill that night, as those do who are over-weary. Moreover,

this had been my first taste of battle, and again and again I saw those

men falling before my sword and arrows. Very proud was I to have slain

them, wicked ravishers as they were, and very glad that from my boyhood

I had practised myself with sword and bow till I could fence with any,

and was perhaps the most skilled marksman in Hastings, having won the

silver arrow at the butts at the last meeting, and from archers of all

ages. Yet the sight of their deaths haunted me who remembered how well

their fate might have been my own, had they got in the first shot or

blow.

Where had they gone to, I wondered? To the priest’s Heaven or Hell? Were

they now telling their sins to some hard-faced angel while he checked

the count from his book, reminding them of many that they had forgotten?

Or were they fast asleep for ever and ever as a shrewd thinker whom I

knew had told me secretly he was sure would be the fate of all of us,

whatever the priests might teach and believe. And where was my mother

whom I had loved and who loved me well, although outwardly she was so

stern a woman, my mother whom I had seen burned alive, singing as she

burned? Oh! it was a vile world, and it seemed strange that God should

cause men and women to be born that they might come to such cruel ends.

Yet who were we to question His decrees of which we knew neither the

beginning nor the finish?

Anyway, I was glad I was not dead, for now that all was over I trembled

and felt afraid, which I had never done during the fighting, even when

my hour seemed very near.

Lastly there was this high-born lady, Blanche Aleys, with whom fortune

had thrown me so strangely that day. Those blue eyes of hers had pierced

my heart like darts, and do what I would I might not rid my mind of the

thought of her, or my ears of the sound of her soft voice, while her

kisses seemed still to burn upon my lips. It wrung me to think that

perhaps I should never see her again, or that if I did I might not speak

with her, being so far beneath her in condition, and having already

earned the wrath of her father, and, as I guessed, the jealousy of that

scented cousin of hers whom they said the King loved like a brother.

What had my mother told me? To leave this place and go to London, there

to find my uncle, John Grimmer, goldsmith and merchant, who was my

godfather, and to ask him to take me into his business. I remembered

this uncle of mine, for some seven or eight years before, when I was a

growing lad, because there was a plague in London he had come down to

Hastings to visit us. He only stayed a week, however, because he said

that the sea air tied up his stomach and that he would rather risk

the plague with a good stomach than leave it behind him with a bad

one--though I think it was his business he thought of, not his stomach.

He was a strange old man, not unlike my mother, but with a nose more

hooked, small dark eyes, and a bald head on which he set a cap of

velvet. Even in the heat of summer he was always cold and wore a frayed

fur robe, complaining much if he came into a draught of air. Indeed he

looked like a Jew, though a good Christian enough, and laughed about

it, because he said that this appearance of his served him well in his

trade, since Jews were always feared, and it was held to be impossible

to overreach them.

For the rest I only recalled that he examined me as to my book learning

which did not satisfy him, and went about valuing all our goods and

fishing-boats, showing my mother how we were being cheated and might

earn more than we did. When he departed he gave me a gold piece and said

that Life was nothing but vanity, and that I must pray for his soul when

he was dead as he was sure it would need such help, also that I ought

to put the gold piece out to interest. This I did by buying with it a

certain fierce mastiff dog I coveted that had been brought on a ship

from Norway, which dog bit some great man in our town, who hauled my

mother before the bailiff about it and caused the poor beast to be

killed, to my great wrath.

Now that I came to think of it, I had liked my Uncle John well enough

although he was so different from others. Why should I not go to him?

Because I did not wish to sit in a shop in London, I who loved the sea

and the open air; also because I feared he might ask me what I had done

with that gold piece and make a mock of me about the dog. Yet my mother

had bidden me go, and it was her last command to me, her dying words

which it would be unlucky to disobey. Moreover, our boats and house

were burnt and I must work hard and long before these could be replaced.

Lastly, in London I should see no more of the lady Blanche Aleys, and

there could learn to forget the lights in her blue eyes. So I determined

that I would go, and at last fell asleep.

Next morning I made my confession to the old priest that, amongst other

matters, he might shrive me of the blood which I had shed, though this

he said needed no forgiveness from God or man, being, as I think, a

stout Englishman at heart. Also I took counsel with him as to what I

should do, and he told me it was my duty to obey my mother’s wishes,

since such last words were often inspired from on high and declared the

will of Heaven. Further he pointed out that I should do well to avoid

the lady Blanche Aleys who was one far above me in degree, the following

of whom might bring me to trouble, or even to death; moreover, that I

might mend my broken fortunes through the help of my uncle, a very rich

man as he had heard, to whom he would write a letter about me.

Thus this matter was settled.

Still some days went by before I left Hastings, since first I must wait

until the ashes of our house were cool enough to search in them for my

mother’s body. Those who found her at length said that she was not so

much burned as might have been expected, but as to this I am uncertain,

since I could not bring myself to look upon her who desired to remember

her as she had been in life. She was buried by the side of my father,

who was drowned, in the churchyard of St. Clement’s, and when all had

gone away I wept a little on her grave.

The rest of that day I spent making ready for my journey. As it chanced

when the house was burnt the outbuildings which lay on the farther side

of the yard behind escaped the fire, and in the stable were two good

horses, one a grey riding-gelding and the other a mare that used to drag

the nets to the quay and bring back the fish, which horses, although

frightened and alarmed, were unharmed. Also there was a quantity of

stores, nets, salt, dried fish in barrels, and I know not what besides.

The horses I kept, but all the rest of the gear, together with the

premises, the ground on which the house had stood, and the other

property I made over to William, my man, who promised me to pay me their

value when he could earn it in better times.

Next morning I rode away for London upon the grey horse, loading the

armour of the knight I had killed and such other possessions as remained

to me upon the mare which I led with a rope. Save William there was none

to say me good-bye, for the misery in Hastings was so great that all

were concerned with their own affairs or in mourning their dead. I

was not sorry that it fell out thus, since I was so full of sadness at

leaving the place where I was born and had lived all my life, that I

think I should have shed tears if any who had been my friends had spoken

kind words to me, which would have been unmanly. Never had I felt

so lonely as when from the high ground I gazed back to the ruins of

Hastings over which still hung a thin pall of smoke. My courage seemed

to fail me altogether; I looked forward to the future with fear,

believing that I had been born unlucky, that it held no good for me

who probably should end my days as a common soldier or a fisherman, or

mayhap in prison or on the gallows. From childhood I had suffered these

fits of gloom, but as yet this was the blackest of them that I had

known.

At length, the sun that had been hidden shone out and with its coming my

temper changed. I remembered that I who might so easily have been dead,

was sound, young, and healthy, that I had sword, bow, and armour of the

best, also twenty or more of gold pieces, for I had not counted them, in

the bag which my mother gave me with Wave-Flame. Further, I hoped that

my uncle would befriend me, and if he did not, there were plenty of

captains engaged in the wars who might be glad of a squire, one who

could shoot against any man and handle a sword as well as most.

So putting up a prayer to St. Hubert after my simple fashion, I pushed

on blithely to the crest of a long rise and there came face to face with

a gay company who, hawk on wrist and hound at heel, were, I guessed,

on their way to hunt in the Pevensey marshes. While they were still a

little way off I knew these to be no other than Sir Robert Aleys, his

daughter Blanche, and the King’s favourite, young Lord Deleroy, with

their servants, and was minded to turn aside to avoid them. Then I

remembered that I had as much right to the King’s Highway as they, and

my pride aiding me, determined to ride on taking no note of them, unless

first they took note of me. Also they knew me, for my ears being very

sharp, I heard Sir Robert say in his big voice:

“Here comes that young fisherman again. Pass him in silence, Daughter”;

heard, too, Lord Deleroy drawl it, “It seems that he has been gathering

gear from the slain, and like a good chapman bears it away for secret

sale.”

Only the lady Blanche answered neither the one nor the other, but rode

forward with her eyes fixed before her, pretending to talk to the hawk

upon her wrist, and now that she was rested and at ease, looking even

more beautiful than she had done on the day of the burning.

So we met and passed, I glancing at them idly and guiding my horses to

the side of the road. When there were perhaps ten yards between us I

heard Lady Blanche cry:

“Oh, my hawk!” I looked round to see that the falcon on her wrist had in

some way loosed itself, or been loosed, and being hooded, had fallen to

the ground where one of the dogs was trying to catch and kill it. Now

there was great confusion, the eyes of all being fixed upon the hawk and

the dog, in the midst of which the lady Blanche very quietly turned her

head, and lifting her hand as though to see how the hawk had fallen from

it, with a swift movement laid her fingers against her lips and threw a

kiss to me.

As swiftly I bowed back and went on my way with a beating heart. For a

few moments I was filled with joy, since I could not mistake the meaning

of this signalled kiss. Then came sorrow like an April cloud, since my

wound which was in the way of healing was all re-opened. I had begun to

forget the lady Blanche, or rather by an effort of the will, to thrust

her from my thought, as my confessor had bidden me. But now on the wings

of that blown kiss thither she had flown back again, not to be frighted

out for many a day.

That night I slept at an inn at Tonbridge, a comfortable place where the

host stared at the gold piece from the bag which I tendered in payment,

and at first would not take what was due to him out of it, because it

bore the head of some ancient king. However, in the end a merchant of

Tonbridge who came in for his morning ale showed him that it was good,

so that trouble passed.

About two in the afternoon I came to Southwark, a town that to me seemed

as big as Hastings before it was burned, where was a fine inn called the

Tabard at which I stopped to bait my horses and to take a bite and drink

of ale. Then I rode on over the great Thames where floated a multitude

of ships and boats, crossing it by London Bridge, a work so wonderful

that I marvelled that it could be made by the hand of man, and so broad

that it had shops on either side of the roadway, in which were sold all

sorts of merchandise. Thence I inquired my way to Cheapside, and came

there at last thrusting a path through a roaring multitude of people,

or so it seemed to me who never before had seen so many men and women

gathered together, all going on their way and, it would appear, ignorant

of each other.

Here I found a long and crowded thoroughfare with gabled houses on

either side in which all kinds of trades were carried on. Down this I

wandered, being cursed at more than once because my pack mare, growing

frightened, dragged away from me and crossed the path of carts which had

to stop till I could pull her free. After the third of these tangles I

halted by the side of the footway behind a wain with barrels on it, and

looked about me bewildered.

To my left was a house somewhat set back from the general line that

had a little patch of garden ground in front of it in which grew some

untended and thriftless-looking shrubs. This house seemed to be a place

of business because from an iron fastened to the front of it hung a

board on which was painted an open boat, high at the prow and stern,

with a tall beak fashioned to the likeness of a dragon’s head and round

shields all down the rail.

While I was staring at this sign and wondering emptily what kind of a

boat it was and of what nation were the folk who had sailed in her, a

man came down the garden path and leaned upon the gate, staring in turn

at me. He was old and strange-looking, being clad in a rusty gown with

a hood to it that was pulled over his head, so that I could only see a

white, peaked beard and a pair of brilliant black eyes which seemed to

pierce me as a shoemaker’s awl pierces leather.

“What do you, young man,” he asked in a high thin voice, “cumbering my

gate with those nags of yours? Would you sell that mail you have on the

pack-horse? If so I do not deal in such stuff, though it seems good of

its kind. So get on with it elsewhere.”

“Nay, sir,” I answered, “I have naught to sell who in this hive of

traders seek one bee and cannot find him.”

“Hive of traders! Truly the great merchants of the Cheap would be

honoured. Have they stung you, then, already, young bumpkin from the

countryside, for such I write you down? But what bee do you seek? Stay,

now, let me guess. Is it a certain old knave named John Grimmer, who

trades in gold and jewels and other precious things and who, if he had

his deserts, should be jail?”

“Aye, aye, that’s the man,” I said.

“Surely he also will be honoured,” exclaimed the old fellow with a

cackle. “He’s a friend of mine and I will tell him the jest.”

“If you would tell me where to find him it would be more seasonable.”

“All in good time. But first, young sir, where did you get that fine

armour? If you stole it, it should be better hid.”

“Stole it!” I began in wrath. “Am I a London chapman----?”

“I think not, though you may be before all is done, for who knows what

vile tricks Fortune will play us? Well, if you did not steal it, mayhap

you slew the wearer and are a murderer, for I see black blood on the

steel.”

“Murderer!” I gasped.

“Aye, just as you say John Grimmer is a knave. But if not, then

perchance you slew the French knight who wore it on Hastings Hill, ere

you loosed the three arrows at the mouth of the cave near Minnes Rock.”

Now I gaped at him.

“Shut your mouth, young man, lest those teeth of yours should fall

out. You wonder how I know? Well, my friend John Grimmer, the goldsmith

knave, has a magic crystal which he purchased from one who brought it

from the East, and I saw it in that crystal.”

As he spoke, as though by chance he pushed back the hood that covered

his head, revealing a wrinkled old face with a mocking mouth which

drooped at one corner, a mouth that I knew again, although many years

had passed since I looked upon it as a boy.

“You are John Grimmer!” I muttered.

“Yes, Hubert of Hastings, I am that knave himself. And now tell me, what

did you do with the gold piece I gave you some twelve summers gone?”

Then I was minded to lie, for I feared this old man. But thinking better

of it, I answered that I had spent it on a dog. He laughed outright and

said:

“Pray that it is not an omen and that you may not follow the gold

piece to the dogs. Well, I like you for speaking the truth when you

are tempted to do otherwise. Will you be pleased to shelter for a while

beneath the roof of John Grimmer, the merchant knave?”

“You mock me, sir,” I stammered.

“Perhaps, perhaps! But there’s many a true word spoken in jest; for

if you do not know it now you will learn it afterwards that we are all

knaves, each in his own fashion, who if we do not deceive others,

at least deceive ourselves, and I perhaps more than most. Vanity of

vanities! All is vanity.”

Then, waiting for no reply, he drew a silver whistle from under his

dusty robe and blew it, whereon--so swiftly that I marvelled whether he

were waiting--a stout-built serving man appeared to whom he said:

“Take these horses to the stable and treat them as though they were my

own. Unload the pack beast, and when it has been cleaned, set the mail

and the other gear upon it in the room that has been made ready for this

young master, Hubert of Hastings, my nephew.”

Without a word the man led off the horses.

“Be not afraid,” chuckled John Grimmer, “for though I am a knave, dog

does not eat dog and what is yours is safe with me and those who

serve me. Now enter,” and he led the way into the house, opening the

iron-studded oak door with a key from his pouch.

Within was a shop where I saw precious things such as furs and gold

ornaments lying about.

“The crumbs to catch the birds, especially the ladybirds,” he said with

a sweep of his hand, then took me through the shop into a passage

and thence to a room on the right. It was not a large room but more

wonderfully furnished than any I had ever seen. In the centre was a

table of black oak with cunningly carved legs, on which stood cups of

silver and a noble centre piece that seemed to be of gold. From the

ceiling, too, hung silver lamps that already had been lit, for the

evening was closing in, and gave a sweet smell. There was a hearth also

with what was rare, a chimney, upon which burned a little fire of logs,

while the walls were hung with tapestries and broidered silks.

Whilst I stared about me, my uncle took off his cloak beneath which he

was clothed in some rich but rather threadbare stuff, only retaining the

velvet skullcap that he wore. Then he bade me do the same, and when I

had laid my outer garment aside, looked me all over in the lamplight.

“A proper young man,” he muttered to himself, “and I’d give all I have

to be his age and like him. I suppose those limbs and sinews of his came

from his father, for I was ever thin and spare, as was my father before

me. Nephew Hubert, I have heard all the tale of your dealings with the

Frenchmen, on whom be God’s curse, at Hastings yonder; and I say that I

am proud of you, though whether I shall stay so is another matter. Come

hither.”

I obeyed, and taking me by my curling hair with his delicate hand, he

drew down my head and kissed me on the brow, muttering, “Neither chick

nor child for me and only this one left of the ancient blood. May he do

it honour.”

Then he motioned to me to be seated and rang a little silver bell that

stood upon the table. As in the case of the man without, it was answered

instantly from which I judged that Master Grimmer was well served.

Before the echoes of the bell died away a door opened, the tapestry

swung aside, and there appeared two most comely serving maids, tall and

well-shaped both of them, bearing food.

“Pretty women, Nephew, no wonder that you look at them,” he said when

they had gone away to fetch other things, “such as I like to have about

me although I am old. Women for within and men for without, that is

Nature’s law, and ill will be the day when it is changed. Yet beware of

pretty women, Nephew, and I pray you kiss not those as you did the lady

Blanche Aleys at Hastings, lest it should upset my household and turn

servants into mistresses.”

I made no answer, being confounded by the knowledge that my uncle showed

of me and my affairs, which afterwards I discovered he had, in part at

any rate, from the old priest, my confessor, who had written to

commend me to him, telling my story and sending the letter by a King’s

messenger, who left for London on the morrow of the Burning. Nor did he

wait for any, for he bade me sit down and eat, plying me with more meats

than I could swallow, all most delicately dressed, also with rare wines

such as I had never tasted, which he took from a cupboard where they

were kept in curious flasks of glass. Yet as I noted, himself he ate but

little, only picking at the breast of a fowl and drinking but the half

of a small silver goblet filled with wine.

“Appetite, like all other good things, for the young,” he said with a

sigh as he watched my hearty feasting. “Yet remember, Nephew, that if

you live to reach it, a day will come when yours will be as mine is.

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity!”

At length, when I could eat no more, again he rang the silver bell and

those fair waiting girls dressed alike in green appeared and cleared

away the broken meats. After they were gone he crouched over the fire

rubbing his thin hands to warm them, and said suddenly:

“Now tell me of my sister’s death and all the rest of your tale.”

So as well as I was able I told him everything from the hour when I had

first sighted the French fleet on board my fishing-boat to the end.

“You are no fool,” he said when I had finished, “who can talk like any

clerk and bring things that have happened clearly to the listener’s eye,

which I have noted few are able to do. So that’s the story. Well, your

mother had a great heart, and she made a great end, such an one as was

loved of our northern race, and that even I, the old merchant knave,

desire and shall not win, who doubtless am doomed to die a cow’s death

in the straw. Pray the All-Father Odin--nay, that is heresy for which

I might burn if you or the wenches told it to the priests--pray God, I

mean, that He may grant you a better, as He did to old Thorgrimmer,

if the tale be true, Thorgrimmer whose sword you wear and have wielded

shrewdly, as that French knight knows in hell to-day.”

“Who was Odin?” I asked.

“The great god of the North. Did not your mother tell you of him? Nay,

doubtless she was too good a Christian. Yet he lives on, Nephew. I say

that Odin lives in the blood of every fighting man, as Freya lives in

the heart of every lad and girl who loves. The gods change their names,

but hush! hush! talk not of Odin and of Freya, for I say that it is

heresy, or pagan, which is worse. What would you do now? Why came you to

London?”

“Because my mother bade me and to seek my fortune.”

“Fortune--what is fortune? Youth and health are the best fortune,

though, if they know how to use it, those who have wealth as well may go

further than the rest. Also beauteous things are pleasant to the sight

and there is joy in gathering them. Yet at the last they mean nothing,

for naked we came out of the blackness and naked we return there. Vanity

of vanities, all is vanity!”

CHAPTER IV

KARI

Thus began my life in London in the house of my uncle, John Grimmer,

who was called the Goldsmith. In truth, however, he was more than this,

since not only did he fashion and trade in costly things; he lent out

moneys to interest upon security to great people who needed it, and

even to the king Richard and his Court. Also he owned ships and did much

commerce with Holland, France, yes, and with Spain and Italy. Indeed,

although he appeared so humble, his wealth was very large and always

increased, like a snowball rolling down a hill; moreover, he owned much

land, especially in the neighbourhood of London where it was likely to

grow in value.

“Money melts,” he would say, “furs corrupt with moth and time, and

thieves break in and steal. But land--if the title be good--remains.

Therefore buy land, which none can carry away, near to a market or a

growing town if may be, and hire it out to fools to farm, or sell it

to other fools who wish to build great houses and spend their goods in

feeding a multitude of idle servants. Houses eat, Hubert, and the larger

they are, the more they eat.”

No word did he say to me as to my dwelling on with him, yet there I

remained, by common consent, as it were. Indeed on the morrow of my

coming a tailor appeared to measure me for such garments as he thought

I should wear, by his command, I suppose, as I was never asked for

payment, and he bade me furnish my chamber to my own liking, also

another room at the back of the house that was much larger than it

seemed, which he told me was to be mine to work in, though at what I was

to work he did not say.

For a day or two I remained idle, staring at the sights of London

and only meeting my uncle at meals which sometimes we ate alone and

sometimes in the company of sea-captains and learned clerks or of other

merchants, all of whom treated him with great deference and as I soon

guessed, were in truth his servants. At night, however, we were always

alone and then he would pour out his wisdom on me while I listened,

saying little. On the sixth day, growing weary of this idleness, I made

bold to ask him if there was aught that I could do.

“Aye, plenty if you have a mind to work,” he answered. “Sit down now,

and take pen and paper and write what I shall tell you.”

Then he dictated a short letter to me as to shipping wine from Spain,

and when it was sanded, read it carefully.

“You have it right,” he said, seeming pleased, “and your script is

clear if boyish. They taught you none so ill yonder at Hastings where

I thought you had only learned to handle ropes and arrows. Work? Yes,

there is plenty of it of the more private sort which I do not give to

this scribe or to that who might betray my secrets. For know,” he went

on in a stern voice, “there is one thing which I never pardon, and it is

betrayal. Remember that, nephew Hubert, even in the arms of your loves,

if you should be fool enough to seek them, or in your cups.”

So he talked on, and while he did so went to an iron chest that he

unlocked, and thence drew out a parchment roll which he bade me take to

my workroom and copy there. I did so, and found that it was an inventory

of his goods and estates, and oh! before I had done I wished that there

were fewer of them. All the long day I laboured, only stopping for a

bite at noon, till my head swam and my fingers ached. Yet as I did so

I felt proud, for I guessed that my uncle had set me this task for two

reasons: first, to show his trust in me, and, secondly, to acquaint

me with the state of his possessions, but as it were in the way of

business. By nightfall I had finished and checked the copy which with

the original I hid in my robe when the green-robed waiting maid summoned

me to eat.

At our meal my uncle asked me what I had seen that day and I

replied--naught but figures and crabbed writing--and handed him the

parchments which he compared item by item.

“I am pleased with you,” he said at last, “for heresofar I find but a

single error and that is my fault, not yours; also you have done two

days’ work in one. Still, it is not fit that you who are accustomed

to the open air should bend continually over deeds and inventories.

Therefore, to-morrow I shall have another task for you, for like

yourself your horse needs exercise.”

And so he had, for with two stout servants riding with me and guiding

me, he sent me out of London to view a fair estate of his upon the

borders of the Thames and to visit his tenants there and make report of

their husbandry, also of certain woods where he proposed to fell oak for

shipbuilding. This I did, for the servants made me known to the tenants,

and got back at night-fall, able to tell him all which he was glad to

learn, since it seemed that he had not seen this estate for five long

years.

On another day he sent me to visit ships in which goods of his were

being laden at the wharf, and on another took me with him to a sale of

furs that came from the far north where I was told the snow never melts

and there is always ice in the sea.

Also he made me known to merchants with whom he traded, and to his

agents who were many, though for the most part secret, together with

other goldsmiths who held moneys of his, and in a sense were partners,

forming a kind of company so that they could find great sums in sudden

need. Lastly, his clerks and dependents were made to understand that if

I gave an order it must be obeyed, though this did not happen until I

had been with him for some time.

Thus it came about that within a year I knew all the threads of John

Grimmer’s great business, and within two it drifted more and more into

my hands. The last part of it with which he made me acquainted was that

of lending money to those in high places, and even to the State itself,

but at length I was taught this also and came to know sundry of these

men, who in private were humble borrowers, but if they met us in the

street passed us with the nod that the great give to their inferiors.

Then my uncle would bow low, keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground and

bid me do the same. But when they were out of hearing he would chuckle

and say,

“Fish in my net, goldfish in my net! See how they shine who presently

must wriggle on the shore. Vanity of vanities! All is vanity, and

doubtless Solomon knew such in his day.”

Hard I worked, and ever harder, toiling at the mill of all these large

affairs and keeping myself in health during such time as I could spare

by shooting at the butts with my big bow where I found that none could

beat me, or practising sword play in a school of arms that was kept by

a master of the craft from Italy. Also on holidays and on Sundays after

mass I rode out of London to visit my uncle’s estates where sometimes I

slept a night, and once or twice sailed to Holland or to Calais with his

cargoes.

One day, it was when I had been with him about eighteen months, he said

to me suddenly.

“You plough the field, Hubert, and do not tithe the crop, but live upon

the bounty of the husbandman. Henceforward take as much of it as you

will. I ask no account.”

So I found myself rich, though in truth I spent but little, both because

my tastes were simple and it was part of my uncle’s policy to make no

show which he said would bring envy on us. From this time forward he

began to withdraw himself from business, the truth being that age took

hold of him and he grew feeble. The highest of the affairs he left to

me, only inquiring of them and giving his counsel from time to time.

Still, because he must do something, he busied himself in the shop

which, as he said, he kept as a trap for the birds, chaffering in

ornaments and furs as though his bread depended upon his earning a gold

piece, and directing the manufacture of beautiful jewels and cups which

he, who was an artist, designed to be made by his skilled and highly

paid workmen, some of whom were foreigners.

“We end where we began,” he would say. “A smith was I from my

childhood and a smith I shall die. What a fate for one of the blood of

Thorgrimmer! Yet I am selling you into the same bondage, or so it would

seem. But who knows? Who knows? We design, but God decrees.”

It is to be noted that when old men cease from the occupation of their

lives, often enough within a very little time they also cease from life

itself. So it was with my uncle. Day by day he faded till at last at

the beginning of the third winter after I came to him he took to his bed

where he lay growing ever weaker till at length he died in the hour of

the birth of the new year.

To the last his mind remained clear and strong, and never more so than

on the night of his death. That evening after I had eaten I went to his

room as usual and found him reading a beautiful manuscript of the book

of the Wisdom of Solomon that is called Ecclesiastes, a work which he

preferred to all others, since its thoughts were his. “I gathered me

also silver and gold and the peculiar treasures of kings,” he read

aloud, whether to himself or to me I knew not, and went on, “So I was

great, and increased more than all that were before me. . . . Then I

looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour

that I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of

spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”

He closed the book, saying,

“So shall you find, Nephew, you, and every man in the evil days of age

when you shall say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’ Hubert, I am going to

my long home, nor do I grieve. In youth I met with sorrow, for though I

have never told you, I was married then and had one son, a bright boy,

and oh! I loved him and his mother. Then came the plague and took them

both. So having naught left and being by nature one of those who could

wean himself from women, which I fear that you are not, Hubert, noting

all the misery there is in the world and how those who are called noble

whom I hate, grind down the humble and the poor, I turned myself to good

works. Half of all my gains I have given and still give to those who

minister to poverty and sickness; you will find a list of them when I am

gone should you wish to continue the bounty, as to which I do not desire

to bind you in any way. For know, Hubert, that I have left you all that

is mine; the gold and the ships with the movables and chattels to

be your own, but the lands which are the main wealth, for life and

afterwards to be your children’s, or if you should die childless, then

to go to certain hospitals where the sick are tended.”

Now I would have thanked him, but he waved my words aside and went on:

“You will be a very rich man, Hubert, one of the richest in all London;

yet set not your heart on wealth, and above all do not ape nobility or

strive to climb from the honest class of which you come into the ranks

of those idle and dissolute cut-throats and pick-brains who are called

the great. Lighten their pockets if you will, but do not seek to wear

their silken, scented garments. That is my counsel to you.”

He paused a while, picking at the bedclothes as the dying do, and

continued,

“You told me that your mother thought you would be a wanderer, and it

is strange that now my mind should be as hers was in this matter. For

I seem to see you far away amidst war and love and splendour, holding

Wave-Flame aloft as did that Thorgrimmer who begat us. Well, go where

you are called or as occasion drives, though you have much to keep you

at home. I would that you were wed, since marriage is an anchor that few

ships can drag. Yet I am not sure, for how know I whom you should wed,

and once that anchor is down no windlass will wind it up and death alone

can cut its chain. One word more. Though you are so young and strong

remember that as I am, so shall you be. To-day for me, to-morrow for

thee, said the wise old man, and thus it ever was and is.

“Hubert, I do not know why we are born to struggle and to suffer and at

last be noosed with the rope of Doom. Yet I hope the priests are right

and that we live again, though Solomon thought not so; that is, if we

live where there is neither sin nor sorrow nor fear of death. If so, be

sure that in some new land we shall meet afresh, and there I shall ask

account of you of the wealth I entrusted to your keeping. Think of me

kindly at times, for I have learned to love you who are of my blood, and

while we live on in the hearts of those we love, we are not truly dead.

Come hither that I may bless you in your coming in and going out while

you still look upon the sun.”

So he blessed me in beautiful and tender words, and kissed me on the

brow, after which he bade me leave him and send the woman to watch him,

because he desired to sleep.

When she looked at him at midnight just as the bells rang in the new

year, he was dead.

According to his wish John Grimmer, the last of that name, was buried by

the bones of his forgotten wife and child, who had left the world over

fifty years before, in the chancel of that church in the Cheap which

was within a stone’s throw of his dwelling house. By his desire also

the funeral was without pomp, yet many came to it, some of them of high

distinction, although the day was cold and snowy. I noted, moreover, the

deference they showed to me who by now was known to be his heir, even

if they had never spoken with me before, as was the case with certain

of them, taking occasion to draw me aside and say that they trusted that

their ancient friendship with my honoured uncle would be continued by

myself.

Afterwards I looked up their names in his private book and found that

one and all of those who had spoken thus owed moneys to his estate.

When the will was sworn and I found myself the master of many legions,

or rather of more money, land, and other wealth than I had ever dreamed

of, at first I was minded to be rid of trade and to take up my abode

upon one or other of my manors, where I might live in plenty for the

rest of my days. In the end, however, I did not do so, partly because

I shrank from new faces and surroundings, and partly because I was sure

that such would not have been my uncle’s wish.

Instead I set myself to play and outpass his game. He had died very

rich; I determined that I would die five or ten times richer; the

richest man in England if I could, not because I cared for money, of

which indeed I spent but little upon myself, but because the getting

of it and the power that it brought, seemed to me the highest kind

of sport. So bending my mind to the matter I doubled and trebled his

enterprises on this line and on that, and won and won again, for even

where skill and foresight failed, Fortune stood my friend with a such

strange persistence that at length I became superstitious and grew

frightened of her gifts. Also I took pains to hide my great riches from

the public eye, placing much of them in the names of others whom I could

trust, and living most modestly in the same old house, lest I should

become a man envied by the hungry and marked for plunder by the

spendthrift great.

It was during the summer following my uncle’s death that I went to the

wharves to see to the unloading of a ship that came in from Venice,

bearing many goods from the East on my account, such as ivory, silks,

spices, glass, carpets, and I know not what. Having finished my business

and seen these precious things warehoused, I handed over the checking of

a list of them to another and turned to seek my horse.

Then it was that I saw a number of half-grown lads and other idlers

mobbing a man who stood among them wrapped in a robe of what looked like

tattered sheepskin, yet was not because the wool on it was of a reddish

hue and very long and soft, which robe was thrown over his head hiding

his face. At this man--a tall figure who stood there patiently like

a martyr at the stake--these lewd fellows were hurling offal, such as

fishes’ heads and rotted fruits that lay in plenty on the quay, together

with coarse words. “Blackamoor” was one I caught.

Such sights were common enough, but there was a quiet dignity of

bearing about this victim which moved me, so that I went to the rabble

commanding them to desist. One of them, a rough bumpkin, not knowing

who I was, pushed me aside, bidding me mind my own business, whereupon,

being very strong, I dealt him such a blow between the eyes that he

went down like a felled ox and lay there half stunned. His companions

beginning to threaten me, I blew upon my whistle, whereon two of my

serving-men, without whom I seldom rode in those troublous times, ran

up from behind a shed, laying hands upon their short swords, on seeing

which the idlers took to their heels.

When they had gone I turned to look at the stranger, whose hood had

fallen back in the hustling, and saw that he was about thirty years of

age, and of a dark and noble countenance, beardless, but with straight

black hair, black flashing eyes, and an aquiline nose. Another thing

I noted about him was that the lobe of his ear was pierced and in a

strange fashion, since the gristle was stretched to such a size that

a small apple could have been placed within its ring. For the rest the

man’s limbs were so thin as though from hunger, that everywhere his

bones showed, while his skin was scarred with cuts and scratches, and

on his forehead was a large bruise. He seemed bewildered also and very

weak, yet I think he understood that I was playing a friend’s part to

him, for he bowed towards me in a stately, courteous way and kissed the

air thrice, but what this meant at the time I did not know.

I spoke to him in English, but he shook his head gently to show that he

did not understand. Then, as though by an afterthought, he touched his

breast several times, and after each touch, said in a voice of strange

softness, “Kari,” which I took it he meant was his name. At any rate,

from that time forward I called him Kari.

Now the question was how to deal with him. Leave him there to be mocked

or to perish I could not, nor was there anywhere whither I could send

him. Therefore it seemed the only thing to do was to take him home with

me. So grasping his arm gently I led him off the quay where our horses

were and motioned to him to mount one that had been ridden by a servant

whom I bade to walk. At the sight of these horses, however, a great

terror took hold of him for he trembled all over, a sweat bursting

out upon his face, and clung to me as though for protection, making it

evident that he had never seen such an animal before. Indeed, nothing

would persuade him to go near them, for he shook his head and pointed

to his feet, thus showing me that he preferred to walk, however weak his

state.

The end of it was that walk he did and I with him from Thames side to

the Cheap, since I dared not leave him alone for fear lest he should

run away. A strange sight we presented, I leading this dusky wanderer

through the streets, and glad was I that night was falling so that few

saw us and those who did thought, I believe, that I was bringing some

foreign thief to jail.

At length we reached the Boat House as my dwelling was called, from the

image of the old Viking vessel that my uncle had carved and set above

the door, and I led him in staring about him with all his eyes, which in

his thin face looked large as those of an owl, taking him up the stairs,

which seemed to puzzle him much, for at every step he lifted his leg

high into the air, to an empty guest room.

Here besides the bed and other furniture was a silver basin with its

jug, one of the beautiful things that John Grimmer had brought I know

not whence. On these Kari fixed his eyes at once, staring at them in

the light of the candles that I had lit, as though they were familiar to

him. Indeed, after glancing at me as though for permission, he went to

the jug that was kept full of water in case of visitors of whom I had

many on business, lifted it, and after pouring a few drops of the water

on to the floor as though he made some offering, drank deeply, thus

showing that he was parched with thirst.

Then without more ado he filled the basin and throwing off his tattered

robe began to wash himself to the waist, round which he wore another

garment, of dirty cotton I thought, which looked like a woman’s

petticoat. Watching him I noted two things, that his poor body was as

scratched and scarred as though by old thorn wounds, as were his face

and hands, also marked with great bruises as though from kicks and

blows, and secondly that hung about his neck was a wondrous golden image

about four inches in length. It was of rude workmanship with knees bent

up under the chin, but the face, in which little emeralds were set for

eyes, was of a great and solemn dignity.

This image Kari washed before he touched himself with water, bowing to

it the while, and when he saw me observing him, looked upwards to the

sky and said a word that sounded like _Pachacamac_, from which I took

it to be some idol that the poor man worshipped. Lastly, tied about his

middle was a hide bag filled with I knew not what.

Now I found a washball made of oil of olives mixed with beech ash and

showed him the use of it. At first he shrank from this strange thing,

but coming to understand its office, served himself of it readily,

smiling when he saw how well it cleansed his flesh. Further, I fetched

a shirt of silk with a pair of easy shoes and a fur-lined robe that had

belonged to my uncle, also hosen, and showed him how to put them on,

which he learned quickly enough. A comb and a brush that were on the

table he seemed to understand already, for with them he dressed his

tangled hair.

When all was finished in a fashion, I led him down the stairs again to

the eating-room where supper was waiting, and offered him food, at

the sight of which his eyes glistened, for clearly he was well-nigh

starving. The chair I gave him he would not sit on, whether from respect

for me or because it was strange to him, I do not know, but seeing a low

stool of tapestry which my uncle had used to rest his feet, he crouched

upon this, and thus ate of whatever I gave him, very delicately though

he was so hungry. Then I poured wine from Portugal into a goblet and

drank some myself to show him that it was harmless, which, after tasting

it, he swallowed to the last drop.

The meal being finished which I thought it was well to shorten lest

he should eat too much who was so weak, again he lifted up his eyes as

though in gratitude, and as a sign of thankfulness, or so I suppose,

knelt before me, took my hand, and pressed it against his forehead,

thereby, although I did not know it at the time, vowing himself to

my service. Then seeing how weary he was I conducted him back to the

chamber and pointed out the bed to him, shutting my eyes to show that

he should sleep there. But this he would not do until he had dragged the

bedding on to the floor, from which I gathered that his people, whoever

they might be, had the habit of sleeping on the ground.

Greatly did I wonder who this man was and from what race he sprang,

since never had I seen any human being who resembled him at all. Of one

thing only was I certain, namely, that his rank was high, since no noble

of the countries that I knew had a bearing so gentle or manners so fine.

Of black men I had seen several, who were called negroes, and others of

a higher sort called Moors; gross, vulgar fellows for the most part and

cut-throats if in an ill-humour, but never a one of them like this Kari.

It was long before my curiosity was satisfied, and even then I did not

gather much. By slow degrees Kari learned English, or something of it,

though never enough to talk fluently in that tongue into which he always

seemed to translate in his mind from another full of strange figures of

thought and speech. When after many months he had mastered sufficient of

our language, I asked him to tell me his story which he tried to do. All

I could make of it, however, came to this.

He was, he said, the son of a king who ruled over a mighty empire far

far away, across thousands of miles of sea towards that part of the sky

where the sun sank. He declared that he was the eldest lawful son, born

of the King’s sister, which seemed dreadful to my ideas though perhaps

he meant cousin or relative, but that there were scores of other

children of his father, which, if true, showed that this king must be

a very loose-living man who resembled in his domesticities the wise

Solomon of whom my uncle was so fond.

It appeared, further, according to the tale, that this king, his father,

had another son born of a different mother, and that of this son he was

fonder than of my guest, Kari. His name was Urco, and he was jealous

of and hated Kari the lawful heir. Moreover, as is common, a woman came

into the business, since Kari had a wife, the loveliest lady in all the

land, though as I understood, not of the same tribe or blood as himself,

and with this wife of his Urco fell in love. So greatly did he desire

her, although he had plenty of wives of his own, that being the general

of the King’s troops, he sent Kari, with the consent of their father, to

command an army that was to fight a distant savage nation, hoping

that he would be killed, much as David did in the matter of Uriah

and Bathsheba, of whom the Bible tells the story. But as it happened,

instead of being killed like Uriah, Kari conquered the distant nation,

and after two years returned to the King’s court, where he found that

his brother Urco had led astray his wife whom he had taken into his

household. Being very angry, Kari recovered his wife by command of the

King, and put her to death because of her faithlessness.

Thereon the King, his father, a stern man, ordered him into banishment

because he had broken the laws of the land, which did not permit of

private vengeance over a matter of a woman who was not even of the royal

blood, however fair she might be. Before he went, however, Urco, who was

mad at the loss of his love, caused some kind of poison to be given to

Kari, which although it does not kill, for he dared not kill him because

of his station, deprives him who takes it of his reason, sometimes

for ever and sometimes for a year or more. After this, said Kari, he

remembered little or nothing, save long travellings in boats and through

forests, and then again upon a raft or boat on which he was driven

alone, for many, many days, drinking a jar of water which he had with

him, and eating some dried flesh and with it a marvellous drug of his

people, some of which remained to him in the leathern bag that has power

to keep the life in a man for weeks, even if he is labouring hard.

At last, he declared, he was picked up by a great ship such as he had

never seen before, though of this ship he recalled little. Indeed he

remembered nothing more until he found himself upon the quay where I

discovered him, and of a sudden his mind seemed to return but he said

he believed that he had come ashore in a boat in which were fishermen,

having been thrown into it by the people on the ship which went on

elsewhere, and that he had walked up the shores of a river. This story

the bruises on his forehead and body seemed to bear out, but it was far

from clear, and by the time I learned it months afterwards of course no

traces of the fishermen or their boat could be found. I asked him the

name of the country from which he came. He answered that it was called

_Tavantinsuyu_. He added that it was a wonderful country in which were

cities and churches and great snow-clad mountains and fertile valleys

and high plains and hot forests through which ran wide rivers.

From all the learned men whom I could meet, especially those who

had travelled far, I made inquiries concerning this country called

Tavantinsuyu, but none of them had so much as heard its name. Indeed,

they declared that my brown man must have come from Africa, and that his

mind being disordered, he had invented this wondrous land which he said

lay far away to the west where the sun sank.

So there I must leave this matter, though for my part I was sure that

Kari was not mad, whatever he might have been in the past. A great

dreamer he was, it is true, who declared that the poison which his

brother had given him had “eaten a hole in his mind” through which he

could see and hear things which others could not. Thus he was able to

read the secret motives of men and women with wonderful clearness, so

much so that sometimes I asked him, laughing, if he could not give me

some of that poison that I might see into the hearts of those with whom

I dealt. Of another thing, too, he was always certain, namely, that he

would return to his country Tavantinsuyu of which he thought day and

night, and that _I should accompany him_. At this I laughed again and

said that if so it would be after we were both dead.

By degrees he learned English quite well and even how to read and write

it, teaching me in return much of his own language which he called

_Quichua_, a soft and beautiful tongue, though he said that there were

also many others in his country, including one that was secret to the

King and his family, which he was not allowed to reveal although he knew

it. In time I mastered enough of this Quichua to be able to talk to Kari

in brief sentences of it when I did not wish others to understand what I

said.

To tell the truth, while I studied thus and listened to his marvellous

tales, a great desire arose in me to see this land of his and to open

up a trade with it, since there he declared gold was as plentiful as

was iron with us. I thought even of making a voyage of discovery to

the west, but when I spoke of it to certain sea-captains, even the most

venturesome mocked at me and said that they would wait for that journey

till they “went west” themselves, by which in their sea parlance that

they had learned in the Mediterranean, they meant until they died.[*]

When I told Kari this he smiled in his mysterious way and answered that

all the same, I and he should make that journey together and this before

we died, a thing that came about, indeed, though, not by my own will or

his.

[*] Of late there has been much dispute as to the origin of

the phrase “to go west,” or in other words, to die. Surely

it arises from the custom of the Ancient Egyptians who,

after death, were ferried across the Nile and entombed upon

the western shore.--Ed.

For the rest when Kari saw my workmen fashioning gold and setting

jewels in it for sale to the nobles and ladies of the Court, he was much

interested and asked if he might be allowed to follow this craft, of

which he said he understood something, and thus earn the bread he ate. I

answered, yes, for I knew that it irked his proud nature to be dependent

on me, and gave him gold and silver with a little room having a furnace

in it where he could labour. The first thing he made was an object about

two inches across, round and with a groove at the back of it, on the

front of which he fashioned an image of the sun having a human face and

rays of light projecting all about. I asked him what was its purpose,

whereon he took the piece and thrust it into the lobe of his ear where

the gristle had been stretched in the fashion that I have described,

which it fitted exactly. Then he told me that in his country all

the nobles wore such ornaments and that those who did so were called

“ear-men” to distinguish them from the common people. Also he told me

many other things too long to set out, which made me desire more than

ever to see this empire with my eyes, for an empire and no less he

declared it to be.

Afterwards Kari made many such ornaments which I sold for brooches with

a pin set at the back of them. Also he shaped other things, for his

skill as a goldsmith was wonderful, such as cups and platters of strange

design and rich ornamentation which commanded a great price. But on

every one of them, in the centre or some other part of the embossment,

appeared this image of the sun. I asked him why. He answered because the

sun was his god and his people were Sun-worshippers. I reminded him that

he had said that a certain Pachacamac whose image he wore about his neck

was his god. To this he replied:

“Yes, Pachacamac is the god above gods, the Creator, the Spirit of the

World, but the Sun is his visible house and raiment that all may see

and worship,” a saying that I thought had truth in it, seeing that all

Nature is the raiment of God.

I tried to instruct him in our faith, but although he listened patiently

and I think understood, he would not become a Christian, making it

very plain to me that he thought that a man should live and die in the

religion in which he was born and that from what he saw in London he did

not hold that Christians were any better than those who worshipped

the sun and the great spirit, Pachacamac. So I abandoned this attempt,

although there was danger to him while he remained a heathen. Indeed

twice or thrice the priests made inquiry concerning his faith, being

curious as to all that had to do with him. However, I silenced them by

pretending that I was instructing him as well as I was able and that as

yet he did not know enough English to hearken to their holy expositions.

Also when they became persistent I made gifts to the monasteries to

which they belonged, or if they were parish priests, then to their curés

or churches.

Still I was troubled about this matter, for some of these priests were

very fierce and intolerant, and I was sure that in time they would push

the business further.

One more thing I noticed about Kari, namely, that he shrank from women

and indeed seemed to hate them. The maids who had remained with me since

my uncle’s death noticed this, by nature as it were, and in revenge

would not serve him. The end of it was that, fearing lest they should do

him some evil turn with the priests or otherwise, I sent them away and

hired men to take their place. This distaste of Kari for women I set

down to all that he had suffered at the hands of his false and beautiful

wife not wrongly as I think.

CHAPTER V

THE COMING OF BLANCHE

One day, it was the last of the year, the anniversary of the death of my

uncle whose goodness and wisdom I pondered on more and more as time went

by, having a little time to spare from larger affairs, I chanced to be

in the shop in the front of the house, which, as John Grimmer had said,

he kept as a trap to “snare the ladybirds,” and I continued, because I

knew that he would not wish that anything should be changed. Here I was

pleasing myself by looking over such pieces as we had to sell which the

head craftsman was showing to me, since myself I knew little of them,

except as a matter of account.

Whilst I was thus engaged there entered the shop a very fine lady

accompanied by a still finer lordling arrayed so similarly that, at

first sight, in their hooded ermine cloaks it was difficult to know

which was man and which was woman. When they threw these aside, however,

for the shop was warm after the open air, I knew more than that, since

with a sudden stoppage of the heart I saw before me none other than the

lady Blanche Aleys and her relative, the lord Deleroy.

She, who in the old days of the Hastings burnings had been but a lily

bud, was now an open flower and beautiful exceedingly; indeed in her own

fashion the most beautiful woman that ever I beheld. Tall she was and

stately as a lily bloom, white as a lily also, save for those wondrous

blue eyes over which curled the dark lashes. In shape, too, she was

perfect, full-breasted, yet not too full, small-waisted, and with

delicate limbs, a very Venus, such an one as I had seen in ancient

marble brought in a ship from Italy and given, as I believe, to the

King, who loved such things, to be set up in his palace.

My lord also was yet handsomer than he had been, more set and manly,

though still he affected his coxcomb party-coloured dress with the

turned-up shoes of which the points were fastened by little golden

chains beneath the knee. Still he was a fine man with his roving black

eyes, his loose mouth and little pointed beard from which, as from his

hair, came an odour of scents. Seeing me in my merchant’s gown, for I

remained mindful of my uncle’s advice as regards attire, he spoke to me

as great men do to shop-keepers.

“Well met, Goldsmith,” he said in his round, well-trained voice, “I

would make a new-year gift to the lady here, and I am told that you have

plate-wares of the best; gold cups and jewels of rich and rare design,

stamped all of them with the image of the sun which one would wish to

remember on such a day as this. But hearken, let John Grimmer himself

come to serve me for I would treat with no underlings, or take me to him

where he is.”

Now I bowed before him, rubbing my hands, and answered, for so the

humour led me: “Then I fear that I must take my lord farther than my

lord would wish to travel just at present, though who knows? Perchance,

like the rest of us, he may take that journey sooner than he thinks.”

Now at the sound of my voice I saw the lady Blanche stare at me, trying

to catch sight of my face beneath the hood which I wore on this cold

day, while Deleroy started and said briefly:

“Your meaning?”

“It is plain, my lord. John Grimmer is dead and I know not where

he dwells at present since he took that secret with him. But I, who

unworthily carry on his trade, am at your lordship’s service.”

Then I turned and bade the shopman command Kari to come hither and bring

with him the choicest of our cups and jewels.

He went and I busied myself in setting stools for these noble customers

to rest on before the fire. As I did so by chance my hand touched that

of the lady Blanche, whereat once more she strove to peer beneath my

hood. It was as though the nature in her knew that touch again, as by

some instinct every woman does, if once the toucher’s lips have been

near her own, though it be long ago. But I only turned my head away and

drew that hood the closer.

Now Kari came and with him the shopman, bearing the precious wares. Kari

wore a wool-lined robe, very plain, which yet became him so well that

with his fine-cut face and flashing eyes he looked like an Eastern

prince disguised. At him this fine pair stared, for never had they seen

such a man, but taking no note, with many bows he showed the jewels one

by one. Among these was a gem of great value, a large, heart-shaped ruby

that Kari had set in a surround of twisted golden serpents with heads

raised to strike and little eyes of diamonds. Upon this brooch the lady

Blanche fixed her gaze and discarding all others, began to play with it,

till at length the lord Deleroy asked the price. I consulted with Kari,

explaining that myself I did not handle this branch of my business, then

named it carelessly; it was a great sum.

“God’s truth! Blanche,” said Deleroy, “this merchant thinks I am made of

gold. You must choose a cheaper ornament for your new year’s gift, or he

will have to wait for payment.”

“Which mayhap I should be willing to do from one of your quality, my

lord,” I interrupted, bowing.

He looked at me and said:

“Can I have a word apart with you, merchant?”

Again I bowed and led him to the eating-room where he gazed about him,

amazed at the richness of the furnishings. He sat him down upon a carven

chair while I stood before him humbly and waited.

“I am told,” he said at length, “that John Grimmer did other business

besides that of selling jewels.”

“Yes, my lord, some foreign trade.”

“And some home trade also. I mean that he lent money.”

“At times, my lord, and on good security, if he chanced to have any at

command, and at a certain interest. Perhaps my lord will come to his

point.”

“It is short and clear. Those of us who are at Court always want money

where it is needful if we would have advancement and earn the royal

favour of one who does not pay, at least in gold.”

“Be pleased to state the amount and the security offered, my lord.”

He did so. The sum was high and the security was bad.

“Are there any who would stand surety for my lord?”

“Yes, one of great estate, Sir Robert Aleys, who has wide lands in

Sussex.”

“I have heard the name, and if my lord will bid his lawyers put the

matter in writing, I will cause the lands to be valued and give an

answer as quickly as may be.”

“For a young man you are careful, merchant.”

“Alas! such as I need to be who must guard our small earnings in these

troublous times of war and tumult. Such a sum as you speak of would take

all that John Grimmer and I have laid by after years of toil.”

Again he looked at the furnishings of the room and shrugged his

shoulders, then said:

“Good, it shall be done for the need is urgent. To whom is the letter to

be sent?”

“To John Grimmer, at the Boat House, Cheapside.”

“But you told me that John Grimmer was dead.”

“And so he is, my lord, but his name remains.”

Then we returned to the sop and as we went I said,

“If your lordship’s lady should set her heart upon the ruby the cost of

it can stand over a while, since I know that it is hard for a husband to

disappoint a wife of what she desires.”

“Man, she is my distant cousin, not my wife. I would she were, but how

can two high-placed paupers wed?”

“Perhaps it is for this reason that my lord wishes to borrow money.”

Again he shrugged his shoulders, and as we entered the shop I threw back

the hood from off my head upon which I wore a merchant’s cap of velvet.

The lady Blanche caught sight of me and started.

“Surely, surely,” she began, “you are he who shot the three arrows at

the cave’s mouth at Hastings.”

“Yes, my lady, and did your hawk escape the dogs upon the London road?”

“Nay, it was crippled and died, which was the first of many troubles,

for I think my luck rode away with you that day, Master Hubert of

Hastings,” she added with a sigh.

“There are other hawks and luck returns,” I replied, bowing. “Perhaps

this trinket will bring it back to you, my lady,” and taking the

snake-surrounded ruby heart, I proffered it to her with another bow.

“Oh!” she said, her blue eyes shining with pleasure, “oh! it is

beautiful, but whence is the price to come for so costly a thing?”

“I think the matter is one that can wait.”

At that moment the lord Deleroy broke in, saying,

“So you are the man who slew the French knight with an ancient sword,

and afterwards shot three other Frenchmen with three shafts, sending

one of them through shield and mail and body, a tale that was spoken of

afterwards, even in London. God’s truth! you should be serving the King

in the wars, not yourself behind the counter.”

“There are many ways of serving, my lord,” I answered, “by pen and

merchandise as well as by steel and shafts. Now with me it is the turn

of the former, though perhaps the ancient sword and the great black bow

wait till their time comes again.”

He stared at me and muttered, half to himself:

“A strange merchant and a grim, as those dead Frenchmen may have

thought. I tell you, Sir Trader, that your talk and the eyes of that

tall Moor of yours turn my back cold; it is as though someone walked

over my grave. Come, Blanche, let us begone ere our horses be chilled as

I am. Master Grimmer, or Hastings, you shall hear from me, unless I can

do my business otherwise, and for the trinket send me a note at your

leisure.”

Then they went, but as the lady Blanche left the shop she caught her

robe and turned to free it, while she did so flashing at me one of her

sweet looks such as I remembered well.

Kari followed to the door and watched them mount their horses at the

gate, then he searched the ground with his eyes.

“What was it hooked her cloak?” I asked.

“A dream, or the air, Master, for there is nothing else to which it

could have hung. Those who would throw spears behind them must first

turn round.”

“What think you of those two, Kari?”

“I think that they will not pay for your jewel, but perhaps this was but

a bait upon the hook.”

“And what more, Kari?”

“I think that the lady is very fair and false, and that the great lord’s

heart is as black as are his eyes. Also I think that they are dear to

each other and well matched. But it seems that you have met them both

before, Master, so you will know better about them than your slave.”

“Yes, I have met them,” I answered sharply, for his words about Blanche

angered me, adding, “I have noted, Kari, that you have never a good word

for any one whom I favour. You are jealous-natured, Kari, especially of

women.”

“You ask, I answer,” he replied, falling into broken English, as was his

fashion when moved, “and it is true that those who have much love, are

much jealous. That is a fault in my people. Also I love not women. Now

I go make another piece for that which Master give the lady. Only this

time it all snake and no heart.”

He went, taking the tray of jewels with him, and I, too, went to the

eating-room to think.

How strange was this meeting. I had never forgotten the lady Blanche,

but in a sense I had lived her memory down and mindful of my uncle’s

counsel, had not sought to look upon her again, for which reason I kept

away from Hastings where I thought that I should find her. And now here

she was in London and in my house, brought thither by fate. Nor was that

all, since those blue eyes of hers had re-lighted the dead fires in my

heart and, seated there alone, I knew that I loved her; indeed had never

ceased to love her. She was more to me than all my wealth, more than

anything, and alas! between us there was still a great gulf fixed.

She was not wed, it was true, but she was a highly placed lady, and I

but a merchant who could not even call myself a squire, or by law wear

garments made of certain stuffs which I handled daily in my trade. How

might that gulf be crossed?

Then as I mused there rose in my mind a memory of certain sayings of my

wise old uncle, and with it an answer to the question. Gold would bridge

the widest streams of human difference. These fine folk for all their

flauntings were poor. They came to me to borrow money wherewith to gild

their coronets and satisfy the importunate creditors at their door, lest

they should be pulled from their high place and forced back into the

number of the common herd as those who could no longer either give or

pay.

And after all, was this difference between them and me so wide? The

grandsire of Sir Robert Aleys, I had been told, gathered his wealth by

trade and usury in the old wars; indeed, it was said that he was one who

dealt in cattle, while Lord Deleroy was reported to be a bastard, if of

the bluest blood, so blue that it ran nigh to the royal purple. Well,

what was mine? On the father’s side, Saxon descended from that of Thanes

who went down before the Normans and thereafter became humble landed

folk of the lesser sort. On the mother’s, of the race of the old

sea-kings who slew and conquered through all the world they knew. Was I

then so far beneath these others? Nay, but like my father and my uncle I

was one who bought and sold and the hand of the dyer was stained to the

colour of his vat.

Thus stood the business. I, a stubborn man, not ill-favoured, to whom

Fortune had given wealth, was determined to win this woman who, it

seemed to me, looked upon me with no unkind eye since I had saved her

from certain perils. To myself then and there I swore I would win her.

The question was--how could it be done? I might enter the service of

the King and fight his battles and doubtless win myself a knighthood, or

more, which would open the closed gate.

Nay, it would take too long, and something warned me that time pressed.

That strange foreign man, Kari, said that Blanche was enamoured of this

Deleroy, and although I was wrath with him, setting his words down to

jealousy of any on whom I looked with kindness, I knew well that Kari

saw far. If I tarried, this rare white bird would slip from my hand into

another’s cage. I must stir at once or let the matter be. Well, I had

wealth, so let wealth be my friend. Time enough to try war when it

failed me.

On the third day of the new year, which at this time of Court revelry

showed that the matter must indeed be pressing, I received those

particulars for which I had asked, together with a list of the lands and

tenements that Sir Robert Aleys was ready to put in pawn on behalf of

his friend and relative, the lord Deleroy. Why should he do this, I

wondered? There could only be one answer: because he and not Deleroy was

to receive the money, or most of it.

Nay, another came into my mind as probable. Because he looked upon

Deleroy as his heir, which, should he marry the lady Blanche, he would

become. If this were so I must act, and quickly, that is, if I would

ever see more of the lady Blanche, as perchance I might do by treading

this gold-paved road, but not otherwise. I studied the list of lands.

As it chanced I knew most of them, for they lay about Pevensey and

Hastings, and saw that they were scarcely worth the moneys which were

asked of me. Well, what of it? This matter was not one of trade and

large as the sum might be, I would risk it for the chance of winning

Blanche.

The end of it was that waiting for no valuings I wrote that on proof of

title clean and unencumbered and completion of all deeds, I would pay

over the gold to whoever might be appointed to receive it.

This letter of mine proved to be but the beginning of a long business

whereof the details may be left untold. On the very next day indeed

I was summoned to the house of Sir Robert Aleys which was near to the

palace and abbey of Westminster. Here I found the gruff old knight grown

greyer and having, as it seemed to me, a hunted air, and with him the

lord Deleroy and two foxy lawyers of whom I did not like the look.

Indeed, for the first, I suspected that I was being tricked and had it

not been for the lady Blanche, would have broken off the loan. Because

of her, however, this I did not do, but having stated my terms anew, and

the rate and dates of interest, sat for a long while saying as little

as possible, while the others unfolded parchments and talked and talked,

telling tales that often contradicted each other, till at length the

lord Deleroy, who seemed ill at ease, grew weary and left the chamber.

At last all was done that could be done at that sitting and it being

past the hour of dinner, I was taken in to eat, consenting, because I

hoped that I should see the lady Blanche.

A butler, or chamber-groom, led me to the dining-hall and sat me with

the lawyers at a table beneath the dais. Presently on this dais appeared

Sir Robert Aleys, his daughter Blanche, the lord Deleroy, and perhaps

eight or ten other fine folk whom I had never seen. She, looking about

her, saw me seated at the lower table, and spoke to her father and

Deleroy, reasoning with the latter, as it would appear. Indeed, in

a sudden hush I caught some of her words. They were, “If you are not

ashamed to take his money, you should not be ashamed to sit at meat with

him.”

Deleroy stamped his foot, but the end of it was that I was summoned

to the high table where the lady Blanche made place for me beside her,

while Deleroy sat himself down between two splendid dames at the other

end of the board.

Here, then, I stayed by Blanche who, I noted, wore the ruby heart

encircled by serpents. Indeed, this was the first thing of which she

spoke to me, saying,

“It looks well upon my robe, does it not, and I thank you for it, Master

Hubert, who know surely that it is not my cousin Deleroy’s gift, but

yours, since for it you will never see your money.”

By way of answer I looked at the sumptuous plate and furnishings, the

profusion of the viands, and the number of the serving-men. Reading my

thought, she replied,

“Aye, but pledged, all of it. I tell you, Master Hubert, that we are

starved hounds, though we live in a kennel with golden bars. And now

they would pawn you that kennel also.”

Then, while I wondered what to say, she began to talk of our great

adventure in bygone years, recalling every tiny thing that had happened

and every word that had been spoken between us, some of which I had

forgotten. Of one thing only she said nothing--the kisses with which we

parted. Amongst much else, she spoke of how the ancient sword had shorn

through the armour of the French knight, and I told her that the sword

was named Wave-Flame and that it had come down to me from my ancestor,

Thorgrimmer the Viking, and of what was written on its blade, to all of

which she listened greedily.

“And they thought you not fit to sit at meat with them, you whose race

is so old and who are so great a warrior, as you showed that day. And

it is to you that I owe my life and more than life, to you and not to

them.”

So saying she shot a glance at me that pierced me through and through,

as my arrows had pierced the Frenchmen, and what is more beneath the

cover of the board for a moment let her slim hand rest upon my own.

After this for a while we were silent, for indeed I could not speak.

Then we talked on as we could do well enough, since there was no one on

my left where the board ended, and on Blanche’s right was a fat old

lord who seemed to be deaf and occupied himself in drinking more than he

should have done. I told her much about myself, also what my mother had

said to me on the day of the Burning, and of how she had prophesied that

I should be a wanderer, words at which Blanche sighed and answered:

“Yet you seem to be well planted in London and in rich soil, Master

Hubert.”

“Aye, Lady, but it is not my native soil and for the rest we go where

Fate leads us.”

“Fate! What does that word bring to my mind? I have it; yonder Moor of

yours who makes those jewels. He has the very eyes of Fate and I fear

him.”

“That is strange, Lady, and yet not so strange, for about this man there

is something fateful. Ever he swears to me that I shall accompany him to

some dim land where he was born, of which land he is a prince.”

Then I told her all the story of Kari, to which she listened open-eyed

and wondering, saying when I had finished,

“So you saved this poor wanderer also, and doubtless he loves you well.”

“Yes, Lady, almost too well, seeing that at times he is jealous of me,

though God knows I did little for him save pick him from a crowd upon

the quay.”

“Ah! I guess it, who saw him watching you the other day. Yet it is

strange, for I thought that only women could be jealous of men, and men

of women. Hush! they are mocking us because we talk so friendly.”

I looked up, following her glance, and saw that Deleroy and the two fine

ladies between whom he sat, all of whom appeared to have had enough of

wine, were pointing at us. Indeed, in a silence, such as now and again

happens at feasts, I heard one of them say,

“You had best beware lest that fair white dove of yours does not slip

your hand and begin to coo in another’s ear, my Lord Deleroy,” and heard

his answer,

“Nay, I have her too fast, and who cares for a pining dove whereof the

feathers adorn another’s cap?”

Whilst I was wondering what this dark talk might mean the company broke

up, the lady Blanche gliding away through a door at the back of the

dais, followed, as I noted, by Deleroy who seemed flushed and angry.

Many times I visited that prodigal house which seemed to me to be the

haunt of folk who, however highly placed and greatly favoured at

Court, were as loose in their lives as they were in their talk. Indeed,

although I was no saint, I liked them not at all, especially the men

with their scented hair, turned-up shoes, and party-coloured clothes.

Nor as I thought, did Sir Robert Aleys like them, who, whatever his

faults, was a bluff knight of the older sort, who had fought with credit

in the French wars. Yet I noted that he seemed to be helpless in their

hands, or rather in those of Deleroy, the King’s favourite, who was the

chief of all the gang. It was as though that gay and handsome young man

had some hold over the old soldier, yes, and over his daughter also,

though what this might be I could not guess.

Now I will move on with the tale. In due course the parchments were

signed and delivered, and the money in good gold was paid over on my

behalf, after which the great household at Westminster became more

prodigal than before. But when the time came for the discharge of the

interest due not a groat was forthcoming. Then afterwards there was talk

of my taking over certain of the pledged lands in lieu of this interest.

Sir Robert suggested this and I assented, because Blanche had told me

that it would help her father. Only when the matter was set on foot

by my lawyers was it found that these lands were not his to transfer,

inasmuch as they had been already mortgaged to their value.

Then there was a fierce quarrel between Sir Robert Aleys and the lord

Deleroy, at which I was present. Sir Robert with many oaths accused his

cousin of having forged his name when he was absent in France, while

Deleroy declared that what he did was done with due authority. Almost

they drew swords on each other, till at length Deleroy took Aleys aside

and with a fierce grin whispered something into his ear which caused the

old knight to sink down on a stool and call out,

“Get you gone, you false rogue! Get out of this house, aye, and out

of England. If I meet you again, by God’s Blood I swear that King’s

favourite or no King’s favourite, I’ll throat you like a hog!”

To which Deleroy mocked in answer:

“Good! I’ll go, my gentle cousin, which it suits me well to do who have

certain business of the King’s awaiting me in France. Aye, I’ll go and

leave you to settle with this worthy trader who may hold that you have

duped him. Do it as you will, except in one fashion, of which you know.

Now a word with my cousin Blanche and another at the Palace and I ride

for Dover. Farewell, Cousin Aleys. Farewell, worthy merchant for whose

loss I should grieve, did I not know that soon you will recoup yourself

out of gentle pockets. Mourn not over me over much, either of you, since

doubtless ere so very long I shall return.”

Now my blood flamed up and I answered:

“I pray you do not hurry, my lord, lest you should find me waiting for

you with a shield and a sword in place of a warrant and a pen.”

He heard and called out, “Fore God, this chapman thinks himself a

knight!”

Then with a mocking laugh he went.

CHAPTER VI

MARRIAGE--AND AFTER

Sir Robert and I stood facing each other speechless with rage, both of

us. At length he said in a hoarse voice:

“Your pardon, Master Hastings, for the affronts that this bastard

lordling has put upon you, an honest man. I tell you that he is a

loose-living knave, as you would agree if you knew all his story, a

cockatrice that for my sins I have nurtured in my bosom. ‘Tis he that

has wasted all my substance; ‘tis he that has made free of my name, so

that I fear me you are defrauded. ‘Tis he that uses my house as though

it were his own, bringing into it vile women of the Court, and men that

are viler still, however high their names and gaudy their attire,” and

he choked with his wrath and stopped.

“Why do you suffer these things, sir?” I asked.

“Forsooth because I must,” he answered sullenly, “for he has me and mine

by the throat. This Deleroy is very powerful, Master Hastings. At a word

from him whispered in the King’s ear, I, or you, or any man might find

ourselves in the Tower accused of treason, whence we should appear no

more.”

Then, as though he wished to get away from the subject of Deleroy and

his hold upon him, he went on:

“I fear me that your money, or much of it, is in danger for Deleroy’s

bond is worthless, and since the land is already pledged without my

knowledge, I have nowhere to turn for gold. I tell you that I am an

honest man if one who has fallen into ill company, and this wickedness

cuts me deep, for I know not how you will be repaid.”

Now a thought came to me, and as was my bold fashion in all business, I

acted on it instantly.

“Sir Robert Aleys,” I said, “should it be pleasing to you and another,

I can see a way in which this debt may be cancelled without shame to you

and yet to my profit.”

“Then in God’s name speak it! For I see none.”

“Sir, in bygone time, as it chanced I was able yonder at Hastings to do

some service to your daughter and in that hour she took my heart.”

He started but motioned to me to continue.

“Sir, I love her truly and desire more than anything to make her my

wife. I know she is far above me in station, still although but a

merchant, I am of good descent as I can prove to you. Moreover, I

am rich, for this money that I have advanced to you, or to the lord

Deleroy, is but a small part of my wealth which grows day by day through

honest trade. Sir, if my suit were accepted I should be ready, not only

to help you further on certain terms, but by deed and will to settle

most of it upon the lady Blanche and upon our children. Sir, what say

you?”

Sir Robert tugged at his red beard and stared down at the floor.

Presently he lifted his head and I saw that his face was troubled, the

face of a man, indeed, who is struggling with himself, or, as I thought,

with his pride.

“A fair offer fairly put,” he said, “but the question is, not what I

say, but what says Blanche.”

“Sir, I do not know who have never asked her. Yet at times I have

thought that her mind towards me is not unkind.”

“Is it so? Well, perhaps now that he--well, let that lie. Master

Hastings, you have my leave to try your fortune and I tell you straight

that I hope it will be good. With your wealth your rank may be soon

mended and you are an honest man whom I should be glad to welcome as a

son, for I have had enough of these Court knaves and painted Jezebels.

But if such is your fancy towards Blanche, my counsel to you is that you

put it quickly to the proof--aye, man, at once. Mark my words, for such

a swan as she is many snares are set beneath the dirty waters of this

Court.”

“The sooner the better, sir.”

“Good. I’ll send her to you and, one word more--be not over shy, or

ready to take the first ‘no’ for an answer, or to listen to the tale of

bygone fancies, such as all women have.”

Then suddenly he went, leaving me there wondering at his words and

manner, which I did not understand. This I understood, however, that he

desired that I should marry Blanche, which considering all things I held

somewhat strange, although I had the wealth she lacked. Doubtless, I

thought, it must be because his honour had been touched on the matter

of the trick that had been played upon him without his knowledge. Then I

ceased from these wonderings and gave my thought to what I should say to

Blanche.

I waited a long while and still she did not come, till at last I

believed that she was away from the house, or guessing my business, had

refused to see me. At length, however, she entered the room, so silently

that I who was staring at the great abbey through a window-place never

heard the door open or close. I think that some sense of her presence

must have drawn me, since suddenly I turned to see her standing before

me. She was clad all in white, having a round cap or coronet upon her

head beneath which her shining fair hair was looped in braids. Her

little coat, trimmed with ermine, was fastened with a single jewel, that

ruby heart embraced by serpents which I had given her. She wore no other

ornament. Thus seen she looked most lovely and most sweet and all my

heart went out in yearning for her.

“My father tells me that you wish to speak with me, so I have come,” she

said in her low clear voice, searching my face curiously with her large

eyes.

I bowed my head and paused, not knowing how to begin.

“How can I serve you, who, I fear, have been ill served?” she went on

with a little smile as though she found amusement in my confusion.

“In one way only,” I exclaimed, “by giving yourself in marriage to me.

For that I seek, no less.”

Now her fair face that had been pale became stained with red and she

let her eyes fall as though she were searching for something among the

rushes that strewed the floor.

“Hearken before you answer,” I continued. “When first I spoke with you

on that bloody day at Hastings and you had but just come to womanhood, I

loved you and swore to myself that I would die to save you. I saved you

and we kissed and were parted. Afterwards I tried to put you out of my

heart, knowing that you were set far above me and no meat for such as I,

though still for your sake I wooed no other woman in marriage. The years

went by and fortune brought us together again, and lo! the old love was

stronger than before. I know that I am not worthy of you who are so high

and good and pure. Still----” and I stopped, lacking words.

She moved uneasily and the red colour left her cheeks as though she had

been suddenly pained.

“Bethink you,” she said with a touch of hardness in her voice, “can

one who lives the life I live and keeps my company, remain as holy and

unstained as you believe? If you would gather such a lily, surely you

should seek it in a country garden, not in the reek of London.”

“I neither know nor care,” I answered, whose blood was all afire. “I

know only that wherever you grow and from whatever soil, you are the

flower I would pluck.”

“Bethink you again; an ugly slug might have smeared my whiteness.”

“If so the honest sun and rain will recover and wash it and I am a

gardener who scatters lime to shrivel slugs.”

“If to this one you will not listen, then hear another argument.

Perchance I do not love you. Would you win a loveless bride?”

“Perchance you can learn of love, or if not, I have enough to serve for

two.”

“By my faith! it should not be difficult with a man so honest and so

well favoured. And yet--a further plea. My cousin Deleroy has cheated

you” (here her face hardened), “and I think I am offered to you by my

father in satisfaction of his honour, as men who have no gold offer a

house or a horse to close a debt.”

“It is not so. I prayed you of your father. The loss, if loss there be,

is but a chance of trade, such as I face every day. Still, I will be

plain and tell you that I risked it with open eyes, expecting nothing

less, that I might come near to you.”

Now she sat herself down in a chair, covering her face with her hands,

and I saw from the trembling of her body that she was sobbing. While I

wondered what to do, for the sight wrung me, she let fall her hands and

there were tears upon her face.

“Shall I tell you all my story, you good, simple gentleman?” she asked.

“Nay, only two things. Are you the wife of some other man?”

“Not so, though perhaps--once I went near to it. What is the other

question?”

“Do you love some other man so that your heart tells you it is not

possible that you should ever love me?”

“No, I do not,” she answered almost fiercely, “but by the Rood! I hate

one.”

“Which is no affair of mine,” I said, laughing. “For the rest, let it

sleep. Few are they that know life’s wars who have no scar to hide, and

I am not one of them, though in truth your lips made the deepest yonder

by the cave at Hastings.”

When she heard this she coloured to her brow and forgetting her tears,

laughed outright, while I went on:

“Therefore let the past be and if it is your will, let us set our eyes

upon the future. Only one promise would I ask of you, that never again

will you be alone with the lord Deleroy, since one so light-fingered

with a pen would, I think, steal other things.”

“By my soul! the last thing I desire is to be alone with my cousin

Deleroy.”

Now she rose from the chair and for a little while we stood facing

each other. Then she very slightly opened her arms and lifted her face

towards me.

Thus did Blanche Aleys and I become affianced, though afterwards, when I

thought the business over, I remembered that never once did she say that

she would marry me. This, however, troubled me little, since in such

matters it is what women do that weighs, not what they say. For the rest

I was mad with love of her, also both then and as the days went by, more

and more did she seem to be travelling on this same road of Love. If

not, indeed she acted well.

Within a month we were wed on a certain October day in the church of

St. Margaret’s at Westminster. Once it was agreed all desired to push on

this marriage, and not least Blanche herself. Sir Robert Aleys said that

he wished to be gone from London to his estates in Sussex, having had

enough of the Court and its ways, desiring there to live quietly till

the end; I, being so much in love, was on fire for my bride, and Blanche

herself vowed that she was eager to become my wife, saying that our

courtship, which began on Hastings Hill, had lasted long enough. For the

rest, there was nothing to cause delay. I cancelled Sir Robert’s debt

to me and signed a deed in favour of his daughter and her offspring,

whereof I gave a copy to his lawyer and there was nought else to be done

except to prepare my house for her which, with money at command, was

easy.

No great business was made of this marriage, since neither his kin nor

Sir Robert himself wished to noise it about that his only child, the

last of his House, was taking a merchant for her husband to save her and

him from wreck. Nor did I, the merchant, wish to provoke talk amongst

those of my own station, especially as it was known that I had advanced

moneys to these fine folks of the Court. So it came about that few were

asked to the ceremony that was fixed for an early hour, and of these

not many came, because on that day, although it was but October, a great

gale with storms of rain began to blow, the greatest indeed that I had

known in my life.

Thus it chanced that we were wed in an almost empty church while the

fierce wind, thundering against the windows, overcame the feeble voice

of the old priest, so that he looked like one acting in a show without

words. The darkness caused by the thick rain was so deep, also, that

scarce could I see my bride’s lovely face or find the finger upon which

I must set the ring.

At length it was done and we went down the aisle to find our horses

whereon we must ride to my house in Cheapside, where there was to be

a feast for my dependents and such of my few friends as cared to come,

among whom were not numbered any grand folk from Westminster. As we

drew near the church door I noted among those who were present those

two gaudy ladies between whom Deleroy had sat at that meal after the

business of the loan was settled. Moreover, I heard one of them say:

“What will Deleroy do when he comes back to find his darling gone?” and

the other answer with a high laugh:

“Seek another, doubtless, or borrow more money from the merchant,

and----” Here I lost their talk in the rush of the wind through the

opened door.

In the porch was old Sir Robert Aleys.

“Mother of God!” he shouted, “may the rest of the lives of you two be

smoother than your nuptials. No Cheapside feast for me, I’m for home

in such fiend’s weather. Farewell, son Hubert, and all joy to you.

Farewell, Blanche. Learn to be obedient as a wife and keep your eyes for

your husband’s face, that is my counsel to you. Till we meet again at

Christmastide in Sussex, whither I ride to-morrow, farewell to both of

you.”

Farewell, it was indeed, for never did either of us look on him again.

Wrapped close in our cloaks we battled through the storm and at length,

somewhat breathless, reached my house in the Cheap where the garlands of

autumn flowers and greenery that I had caused to be wreathed from posts

before the door were all torn away by the gale. Here I welcomed my wife

as best I could, kissing her as she crossed the threshold and saying

certain sweet words that I had prepared, to which she smiled an answer.

Then the women took her to her chamber to make herself ready and

afterwards came the feast, which was sumptuous of its sort, though the

evil weather kept some of the guests away.

Scarcely had it begun when Kari, who of late had been sad-faced and

brooding, and who did not eat with us, entered and whispered to me that

my Master of Lading from the docks prayed to see me at once on a matter

which would brook no delay. Making excuse to Blanche and the company,

I went out to see him in the shop and found the man much disturbed. It

seemed that a certain vessel of mine that I had rechristened _Blanche_

in honour of my wife, which lay in the stream ready to sail, was in

great danger because of the tempest. Indeed, she was dragging at her

anchor, and it was feared that unless more anchors could be let down she

would come ashore and be wrecked against the jetty-heads or otherwise.

The reason why this had not been done, was that only the master and one

sailor were on board the vessel; the rest were feasting ashore in honour

of my marriage, and refused to row out to her, saying that the boat

would be swamped in the gale.

Now this ship, although not very large, was the best and staunchest that

I owned, being almost new; moreover, the cargo on board of her, laden

for the Mediterranean, was of great value, so great indeed that its loss

would have been very grievous to me. Therefore, it was plain that I must

see to the matter without delay, since from my servant’s account there

was no hope that these rebellious sailors would listen to any lesser man

than myself. So, if I would save the ship and her cargo, I must ride for

the docks at once.

Going back to the eating-chamber, in a few words I told my wife and the

guests how the matter stood, praying the oldest man among the latter

to take my place by the bride, which he did unwillingly, muttering that

this was an unlucky marriage feast.

Then it was that Blanche rose, beseeching me earnestly and almost with

tears that I would take her with me to the docks. I laughed at her, as

did the company, but still she besought with much persistence, till I

began to believe that she must be afraid of something, though the others

cried that it was but love and fear lest I should come to harm.

In the end I made her drink a cup of wine with me, but her hand shook so

much that she spilled the cup and the rich red wine ran down her breast,

staining the whiteness of her robe, whereat some women among the company

murmured, thinking it a bad omen. At length with a kiss I tore myself

away, for I could bide no longer and the horses were waiting presently.

So I was riding for the docks as fast as the storm would suffer, with

tiles from the roofs, and when we were clear of these the torn-off limbs

of trees hurtling round me. Kari, I should say, would have accompanied

me, but I took a serving-man, bidding Kari bide where he was in the

house in case he might be of service.

At last we came safely to the docks where I found all as my cargo-master

had described. The ship _Blanche_ was in great peril and dragging every

minute towards a pierhead which, if she struck, would stave her in and

make an end of her. The men, too, were still feasting in the inn with

their wharfside trollops, and some of them half drunk. I spoke to them,

showing them their shame, and saying that if they would not come, I and

my man would take a boat and get aboard alone and this upon my wedding

day. Then they hung their heads and came.

We won to the ship safely though with much toil and danger, and there

found the master almost crazed with fear and doubt of the issue, and the

man with him injured by a falling block. Indeed, this poor captain clung

to the rail, watching the cable as it dragged the anchor and fearing

every moment lest it should part.

The rest is soon told. We got out two more anchors and did other things

such as sailors know, to help in such a case. When all was as safe as

it could be made, I and my man and four sailors started for the quay,

telling the master that I would return upon the morrow. The wind and

current aiding us, we landed safe and sound and at once I rode back to

Cheapside.

Now, though it is short to tell, all this had taken a long while, also

the way was far to ride in such a storm. Thus it came about that it was

nigh to ten o’clock at night when, thanking God, I dismounted at the

gate of my house and bade the servant take the horses to the stable. As

I drew near the door, it opened, which astonished me and, as the light

within showed, there stood Kari. What astonished me still more, he had

the great sword, Wave-Flame, in his hand, though not drawn, which sword

he must have fetched from where it was kept with the French knight’s

armour and the shield that bore three arrows as a cognizance.

Laying his finger on his lips he shut the door softly, then said in a

low voice:

“Master, there is a man up yonder with the lady.”

“What man?” I asked.

“That same lord, Master, who came here with her once before to buy

jewels and borrow gold. Hearken. The feast being finished the guests

went away at fall of night, but the wife-lady withdrew herself into the

chamber that is called sun-room (the solar), that up the stairs, which

looks out on the street. About one hour gone there came a knock at the

door. I who was watching, opened, thinking it was you returned, and

there stood that lord. He spoke to me, saying:

“‘Moor-man, I know that your master is from home, but that the lady is

here. I would speak with her.’

“Now I would have turned him away, but at that moment the lady herself,

who it seemed was watching, came down the stairs, looking very white,

and said:

“‘Kari, let the lord come in. I have matters of your master’s business

about which I must talk with him.’ So, Master, knowing that you had lent

money to this lord, I obeyed, though I liked it not, and having fetched

the sword which I thought perchance might be needed, I waited.”

This was the substance of what he said, though his talk was more broken

since he never learned to speak English well and helped it out with

words of his own tongue, of which, as I have told, he had taught me

something.

“I do not understand,” I exclaimed, when he had finished. “Doubtless

it is little or nothing. Yet give me the sword, for who knows? and come

with me.”

Kari obeyed, and as I went up the stairs I buckled Wave-Flame about me.

Also Kari brought two candles of Italian wax lighted upon their stands.

Coming to the door of the solar I tried to open it, but it was bolted.

“God’s truth!” I said, “this is strange,” and hammered on the panel with

my fist.

Presently it opened, but before entering it, for I feared some trick,

I stood without and looked in. The room was lit by a hanging lamp and

a fire burned brightly on the hearth, for the night was cold. In an oak

chair by the fire and staring into it sat Blanche still as any statue.

She glanced round and saw me in the light of the candles that Kari held,

and again stared into the fire. Half-way between her and the door stood

Deleroy, dressed as ever in fine clothes, though I noted that his cape

was off and hung over a stool near the fire as though to dry. I noted

also that he wore a sword and a dagger. I entered the room, followed by

Kari, shut the door behind me and shot the bolt. Then I spoke, asking:

“Why are you here with my wife, Lord Deleroy?”

“It is strange, Master merchant,” he answered, “but I was about to put

much the same question to you: namely, why is _my_ wife in your house?”

Now, while I reeled beneath these words, without turning her head,

Blanche by the fire said:

“He lies, Hubert. I am not his wife.”

“Why are you here, my Lord Deleroy?” I repeated.

“Well, if you would know, Master merchant, I bring a paper for you, or

rather a copy of it, for the writ itself will be served on you to-morrow

by the King’s officers. It commits you to the Tower under the royal

seal for trading with the King’s enemies, a treason that can be proved

against you, of which as you know, or will shortly learn, the punishment

is death,” and as he spoke he threw a writing down upon a side table.

“I see the plot,” I answered coldly. “The King’s unworthy favourite,

forger and thief, uses the King’s authority to try to bring the King’s

honest subject to bonds and death by a false accusation. It is a common

trick in these days. But let that be. For the third time I ask you--why

are you here with my new-wed wife and at this hour of the night?”

“So courteous a question demands a courteous answer, Master merchant,

but to give it I must trouble you to listen to a tale.”

“Then let it be like my patience, brief,” I replied.

“It shall,” he said with a mocking bow.

Then very clearly and quietly he set out a dreadful story, giving dates

and circumstances. Let that story be. The substance of it was that he

had married Blanche soon after she reached womanhood and that she had

borne him a child which died.

“Blanche,” I said when he had done, “you have heard. Is this true?”

“Much of it is true,” she answered in that strange, cold voice, still

staring at the fire. “Only the marriage was a false one by which I

was deceived. He who celebrated it was a companion of the Lord Deleroy

tricked out as a priest.”

“Do not let us wrangle of this matter,” said Deleroy. “A man who mixes

with the world like yourself, Master merchant, will know that women in a

trap rarely lack excuses. Still if it be admitted that this marriage

did not fulfil all formalities, then so much the better for Blanche

and myself. If she be your lawful wife and not mine, you, I learn, have

signed a writing in her favour under which she will inherit your great

wealth. That indenture I think you can find no opportunity to dispute,

and if you do I have a promise that the property of a certain traitor

shall pass to me, the revealer of his treachery. Let it console you in

your last moments, Master merchant, to remember that the lady whom you

have honoured with your fancy will pass her days in wealth and comfort

in the company of him whom she has honoured with her love.”

“Draw!” I said briefly as I unsheathed my sword.

“Why should I fight with a base, trading usurer?” he asked, still

mocking me, though I thought that there was doubt in his voice.

“Answer your own question, thief. Fight if you will, or die without

fighting if you will not. For know that until I am dead you do not leave

this room living.”

“Until I dead too, O Lord,” broke in Kari in his gentle voice, bowing in

his courteous foreign fashion.

As he did so with a sudden motion Kari shook the cloak back from his

body and for the first time I saw that thrust through his leathern belt

was a long weapon, half sword and half dagger, also that its sharpened

steel was bare.

“Oh!” exclaimed Deleroy, “now I understand that I am trapped and that

when you told me, Blanche, that this man would not return to-night and

that therefore we were safe together, you lied. Well, my Lady Blanche,

you shall pay for this trick later.”

Whilst he spoke thus, slowly, as though to gain time, he was looking

about him, and as the last word left his lips, knowing that the door was

locked, he dashed for the window, hoping, I suppose, to leap through the

casement, or if that failed, to shout for help. But Kari, who had set

the candles he bore on a side table, that where the writing lay, read

his mind. With a movement more swift than that of a polecat leaping on

its prey, the swiftest indeed that ever I saw, he sprang between him and

the casement, so that Deleroy scarce escaped pinning himself upon the

steel that he held in his long, outstretched arm. Indeed, I think it

pricked his throat, for he checked himself with an oath and drew

his sword, a double-edged weapon with a sharp point, as long as mine

perhaps, but not so heavy.

“I see that I must finish the pair of you. Perchance, Blanche, you will

protect my back as a loving wife should do, until this lout is done

with,” he said, swaggering to the last.

“Kari,” I commanded, “hold the candles aloft that the light may be good,

and leave this man to me.”

Kari bowed and took the copper taper stands, one in either hand, and

held them aloft. But first he placed his long dagger, not back in his

belt, but between his teeth with the handle towards his right hand. Even

then in some strange fashion I noted how terrible looked this grim dark

man holding the candles high with the knife gripped between his white

teeth.

Deleroy and I faced each other in the open space between the fire and

the door. Blanche turned round upon her stool and watched, uttering no

sound. But I laughed aloud for of the end I had no doubt. Had there been

ten Deleroys I would have slain them all. Still presently I found there

was cause to doubt, for when, parrying his first thrust, I drove at him

with all my strength, instead of piercing him through and through the

ancient sword, Wave-Flame, bent in my hand like a bow as it is strung,

telling me that beneath his Joseph’s coat of silk Deleroy wore a shirt

of mail.

Then I cried: “_A-hoi!_” as Thorgrimmer my ancestor may have done when

he wielded this same sword, and while Deleroy still staggered beneath

my thrust I grasped Wave-Flame with both hands, wheeled it aloft, and

smote. He lifted his arm round which he had wound his cloak, to protect

his head, but the sword shore through cloak and arm, so that his hand

with the glittering rings upon it fell to the floor.

Again I smote for, as both of us knew, this business was to the death,

and Deleroy fell down dead, smitten through the brain.

Kari smiled gently, and lifting the cloak, shook it out and threw it

over what had been Deleroy. Then he took my sword and while I watched

him idly, cleansed it with rushes from the floor.

Next I heard a sound from the neighbourhood of the fire, and bethinking

me of Blanche turned to speak to her, though what I was going to say God

knows for I do not.

A terrible sight met my eyes and burned itself into my very soul so that

it could never be forgot. Blanche was leaning back in the oak chair over

which flowed her long, fair locks, and the front of her robe was red. I

remembered how she had spilt the wine at the feast and thought I saw its

stain, till presently, still staring, I noted that it grew and knew it

to be caused by another wine, that of her blood. Also I noted that from

the midst of it seen in the lamplight, just beneath the snake-encircled

ruby heart, appeared the little handle of a dagger.

I sprang to her, but she lifted her hand and waved me back.

“Touch me not,” she whispered, “I am not fit, also the thrust is mortal.

If you draw the knife I shall die at once, and first I would speak. I

would have you know that I love you and hoped to be a good wife to you.

What I said was true. That dead man tricked me with a false marriage

when I was scarcely more than a child, and afterwards he would not

mend it with an honest. Perchance he himself was wed, or he had other

reasons, I do not know. My father guessed much but not all. I tried

to warn you when you offered yourself, but you were deaf and blind and

would not see or listen. Then I gave way, liking you well and thinking

that I should find rest, as indeed I do; thinking also that I should be

wealthy and able to shut that villain’s mouth with gold. I never knew

he was coming here or even that he had sailed home from France, but he

broke in upon me, having learned that you were away, and was about to

leave when you returned. He came for money for which he believed that

I had wed, and thinking to win me back from one doomed by his lies to a

traitor’s death. You know the rest, and for me there was but one thing

to do. Be glad that you are no longer burdened with me and go find

happiness in the arms of a more fortunate or a better woman. Fly, and

swiftly, for Deleroy had many friends and the King himself loved him

as a brother--as well he may. Fly, I say, and forgive--forgive! Hubert,

farewell!”

Thus she spoke, ever more slowly and lower, till with the last word her

life left her lips.

Thus ended the story of my marriage with Blanche Aleys.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

THE NEW WORLD

They were forever silent now, who, but a breath before, had been so full

of life and the stir of mortal passion; Deleroy dead beneath the cloak

upon the floor, Blanche dead in the oaken chair. We who remained alive

were silent also. I glanced at Kari’s face; it was as that of a stone

statue on a tomb, only in it his large eyes shone, noting all things

and, as I imagined in my distraught fancy, filled with triumph and

foreknowledge. Considering it in that strange calm of the spirit which

sometimes supervenes on great and terrible events that for a while crush

its mortality from the soul and set it free to marvel at the temporal

pettiness of all we consider immediate and mighty, I wondered what was

the aspect of my own.

At the moment, I, who on this day had passed the portals of so many

emotions: that of the lover’s longing for his bride won at last, only to

be lost again, that of acute and necessary business, that of the ancient

joy of battle and vengeance wreaked upon an evil man; that of the

unshuttering of my own eyes to the flame of a hellish truth, that of the

self-murder and turning to cold clay before those same eyes of her whom

I had hoped to clasp in honest love--I, I say, felt as though I, too,

were dead. Indeed all within was dead, only the shell of flesh remained

alive, and in my heart I echoed the words of my old uncle and of a wiser

than he who went before him--“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”

It was Kari who spoke first, Kari as ever calm and even-voiced, saying

in his broken English of which but the substance is recorded:

“Things have happened, good things I hold, though you, Master, may think

otherwise for a little while. Yet in this rough land of savages and

small justice these things may bring trouble. That lord brought a

writing,” and he nodded towards the document on the table, “and talked

of death for _you_, Master--not for himself. And the lady, while she

still lived, she say--‘Fly, fly or die!’ And now?” and he glanced at the

two bodies.

I looked at him vacantly for the numbness following the first shock was

passing away and all the eating agony of my loss began to fix its fangs

upon my heart.

“Whither can I fly?” I asked. “And why should I fly? I am an innocent

man and for the rest, the sooner I am dead the better.”

“My Master must fly,” answered Kari in swift, broken words, “because he

still live and is free. Also sorrow behind, joy before. Kari, who hate

women and read heart, Kari who drink this same bitter water long ago,

guess these things coming and think and think. No need that Master

trouble, Kari settle all and tell Master that if he do what he say,

everything come right.”

“What am I to do?” I asked with a groan.

“Ship _Blanche_ on great river ready for sea. Master and Kari sail in

her before daybreak. Here leave everything: much land, much wealth--what

matter? Life more than these things which can get again. Come. No, one

minute, wait.”

Then he went to the body of Deleroy and with wonderful swiftness took

off it the chain coat he wore beneath his tunic, which he put on his

own body. Also he took his sword and buckled it about him, while the

parchment writ he threw upon the fire. Then he extinguished the hanging

lamp and gave me one of the candles, taking the other himself.

At the door I held up my candle and by the light of it looked my last

upon the ashen face of Blanche, which face I knew must go with me

through all my life’s days.

Kari locked the stout oaken door of the solar from the outside and took

me into my chamber, where was the armour of the knight whom I had killed

on Hastings Hill, which armour I had caused to be altered to fit myself.

Swiftly he buckled it on to me, throwing over all a long, dark robe such

as merchants wear. From the cupboard, too, he brought the big black bow

and a sheath of arrows, also a purseful of gold pieces from where they

were kept, and with them the leathern bag which he had worn when I found

him on the quay.

We went into the room where the feast had been held and there drank

some wine, though eat I could not. The cup from which I drank was, as it

chanced, the same in which I had pledged Blanche at the bride feast. Now

I pledged her spirit whereon I prayed God’s mercy.

We left the house and in the stable saddled two horses, strong, quiet

beasts. Then by way of the back yard we rode out into the night, none

seeing us, for by now all were asleep, and in that weather the streets

were empty, even of such as walked them in darkness.

We reached the quay I know not how long afterwards whose mind was

full of thoughts that blotted out all else. How strange had been my

life--that was one of them. Within a few years I had risen to great

wealth, and won the woman I desired. And now where was the wealth and

where was the woman, and what was I? One flying his native land by night

with blood upon his hands, the blood of a King’s favourite that, if he

were taken, would bring him to the noose. Oh! how great was the contrast

between the morn and the midnight of that day for me! “Vanity of

vanities. All is vanity!”

I think that my mind must have wandered, for when my soul was swallowed

in this deepest pit of hell, it seemed to me that he whom I had

worshipped as a heavenly patron, St. Hubert, appeared striding by my

horse with a shining countenance and said to me:

“Have good courage, Godson, and remember your mother’s words--a wanderer

shall you be, but where’er you go the good bow and the good sword shall

keep you safe and I wander with you. Nor does all love die with one

woman’s passing breath.”

This phantasy, as it were, lanced the abscess of my pain and for a

while I was easier. Also something of hope came back to me. I no longer

desired to die but rather to live and in life, not in the tomb, to find

forgetfulness.

We reached the quay and placed the horses in a shed that served as

stables there, ridding them of their bits and saddles that they might

eat of the hay in the racks. The thought to do this came to me, which

showed that my mind was working again since still I could attend to the

wants of other creatures. Then we went to the quayside where was made

fast that boat in which I had come ashore some hours gone. There was a

moon which now and again showed between the drifting clouds, and by

the light of it I saw that the _Blanche_ lay safe at her anchors not a

bowshot away. The gale had fallen much with the rising of the moon,

as it often does, and so it came about that although the boat was

over-large for two men to handle rightly, Kari and I, by watching our

chance, were able to row it to the ship, on to which we climbed by the

ladder.

Here we found a sailor on watch who was amazed to see us, and with his

help, made the boat fast by the tow rope to the stern of the ship.

This done I caused the captain to be awakened and told him briefly that

as the gale had abated and tide and wind served, I desired to sail

at once. He stared at me, thinking me mad, whom he knew to have been

married but that day.

Surely, he said, I should wait for the light and to gather up those of

the ship’s company who were still ashore. I answered that I would wait

for nothing, and when he asked why, was inspired to tell him that it was

because I went about the King’s business, having letters from his Grace

to deliver to his Envoys in the South Seas that brooked of no delay,

since on them hung peace or war.

“Beware,” I said to him, “how you, or any of you, dare to disobey the

King’s orders, for you know that the fate of such is a short shrift and

a long rope.”

Then that captain grew frightened and summoned the sailors, who by

now had slept off their drink, and to them he told my commands. They

murmured, pointing to the sky, but when they saw me standing there,

wearing a knight’s armour and looking very stern with my hand upon my

sword, when also through Kari I promised them double pay for the voyage,

they, too, grew frightened, and having set some small sails, got up the

anchors.

So it came about that within little more than an hour of our boarding of

that ship she was running out towards the sea as fast as tide and wind

could drive her. I think that it was not too soon, for as the quay

vanished in the gloom I saw men with lanterns moving on it, and thought

to myself that perhaps an alarm had been given and they were come to

take me.

This captain was one who knew the river well, and with the help of

another sailor he steered us down its reaches safely. By dawn we had

passed Tilbury and at full light were off Gravesend racing for the open

sea. Now it was that behind us we perceived from the rushing clouds that

the gale, which had lulled during the night, was coming up more strongly

than ever and still easterly. The sailors grew afraid again and together

with the captain vowed that it was madness to face the sea in such

weather, and that we must anchor, or make the shore if we could.

I refused to listen to them, whereat they seemed to give way.

At that moment Kari, who had gone forward, called to me. I went to

him and he pointed out to me men galloping along the bank and waving

kerchiefs, as though to signal to us to stop.

“I think, Master,” said Kari, “that some have entered the sun-room at

your house.”

I nodded and watched the men who galloped and waved. For some minutes I

watched them till suddenly I saw that the ship was altering her course

so that her bow pointed first one way and then another, as though she

were no longer being steered. We ran aft to learn the cause, and found

this.

That crew of dastards, every man of them and the captain with them, had

drawn up the boat in which Kari and I came aboard, that was still tied

to the ship’s stern, and slid down the rope into her, purposing to

win ashore before it was too late. Kari smiled as though he were not

astonished, but in my rage I shouted at them, calling them curs and

traitors. I think that the captain heard my words for I saw him turn

his head and look away as though in shame, but not the others. They were

engaged in hunting for the oars, only to find them gone, for it would

seem that they had been washed or had fallen overboard.

Then they tried to set some kind of sail by aid of a boathook, but while

they were doing this, the boat, which had drifted side on to the great

waves raised by the gale upon the face of the broad river, overturned. I

saw some of the men clinging to the boat and one or two scrambling on to

her keel, but what chanced to them and the others I do not know, who had

rushed to the steering gear to set the ship upon her course again,

lest her fate should be that of the boat, or we should go ashore and be

captured by those who galloped on the bank, or be drowned. This was the

last I ever saw or heard of the crew of the _Blanche_.

The ship’s bow came round and, driven by the ever-increasing gale, she

rushed on her course towards the sea, bearing us with her, two weak and

lonely men.

“Kari,” I said, “what shall we do? Try to run ashore, or sail on?”

He thought awhile then answered, pointing to those who galloped, now but

tiny figures on the distant bank:

“Master, yonder is death, sure death; and yonder,” here he pointed to

the sea, “is death--perhaps. Master, you have a God, and I, Kari, have

another God, mayhap same God with different name. I say--Trust our Gods

and sail on, for Gods better than men. If we die in water, what matter?

Water softer than rope, but I think not die.”

I nodded, for the reasoning seemed good. Rather would I be drowned than

fall into the hands of those who were galloping on the shore, to be

dragged back to London and a felon’s doom.

So I pressed upon the tiller to bring the _Blanche_ more into

mid-channel, and headed for the sea. Wider and wider grew the estuary

and farther and farther away the shores as the _Blanche_ scudded on

beneath her small sails with the weight of the gale behind her, till at

last there was the open sea.

Within a few feet of the tiller was a deck-house, in which the crew ate,

built of solid oak and clamped with iron. Here was food in plenty, ale,

too, and with these we filled ourselves. Also, leaving Kari to hold the

tiller, I took off my armour and in place of it clothed myself in the

rough sea garments that lay about with tall greased boots, and then sent

him to do likewise.

Soon we lost sight of land and were climbing the great ocean billows,

whose foamy crests rolled and spurted wherever the eye fell. We could

set no course but must go where the gale drove us, away, away we knew

not whither. As I have said, the _Blanche_ was new and strong and the

best ship that ever I had sailed in upon a heavy sea. Moreover, her

hatches were closed down, for this the sailors had done after we

weighed, so she rode the waters like a duck, taking no harm. Oh! well

it was for me that from my childhood I had had to do with ships and the

sailing of them, and flying from the following waves thus was able to

steer and keep the _Blanche’s_ poop right in the wind, which seemed to

blow first from one quarter and then from that.

Now over my memory of these events there comes a great confusion and

sense of amazement. All became fragmentary and disjointed, separated

also by what seemed to be considerable periods of time--days or weeks

perhaps. There was a sense of endless roaring seas before which the ship

fled on and on, driven by a screaming gale that I noted dimly seemed to

blow first from the northwest and then steadily from the east.

I see myself, very distinctly, lashing the tiller to iron rings that

were screwed in the deck beams, and know that I did this because I

was too weak to hold it any longer and desired to set it so that the

_Blanche_ should continue to drive straight before the gale. I see

myself lying in the deck-house of which I have spoken, while Kari fed me

with food and water and sometimes thrust into my mouth little pellets of

I knew not what, which he took from the leathern bag he wore about him.

I remembered that bag. It had been on his person when I rescued him at

the quay, for I had seen it first as he washed himself afterwards, half

full of something, and wondered what it contained. Later, I had seen it

in his hand again when we left my house after the death of Blanche. I

noted that whenever he gave me one of these pellets I seemed to grow

strong for a while, and then to fall into sleep, deep and prolonged.

After more days--or weeks, I began to behold marvels and to hear strange

voices. I thought that I was talking with my mother and with my patron,

St. Hubert; also that Blanche came to me and explained everything,

showing how little she had been to blame for all that had happened to me

and her. These things made me certain that I was dead and I was glad to

be dead, since now I knew there would be no more pain or strivings; that

the endeavours which make up life from hour to hour had ceased and

that rest was won. Only then appeared my uncle, John Grimmer, who kept

quoting his favourite text at me--“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity,”

he said, adding: “Did I not tell you that it was thus years ago? Now you

have learned it for yourself. Only, Nephew Hubert, don’t think that you

have finished with vanities yet, as I have, for I say that there are

plenty more to come for you.”

Thus he seemed to talk on about this and other matters, such as what

would happen to his wealth and whether the hospitals would be quick

to seize the lands to which he had given it the reversion, till I grew

quite tired of him and wished that he would go away.

Then at length there was a great crash that I think disturbed him,

for he did go, saying that it was only another “vanity,” after which I

seemed to fall asleep for weeks and weeks.

I woke up again for a warmth and brightness on my face caused me to open

my eyes. I lifted my hand to shield them from the brightness and noted

with a kind of wonder that it was so thin that the light shone through

it as it does through parchment, and that the bones were visible beneath

the skin. I let it fall from weakness, and it dropped on to hair which I

knew must be that of a beard, which set me wondering, for it had been my

fashion to go clean-shaven. How, then, did I come by a beard? I looked

about me and saw that I was lying on the deck of a ship, yes, of the

_Blanche_ itself, for I knew the shape of her stern, also certain knots

in one of the uprights of the deck-house that formed a rude resemblance

to a human face. Nothing of this deck-house was left now, except the

corner posts between which I lay, and to the tops of these was lashed a

piece of canvas as though to keep off the sun and the weather.

With difficulty I lifted my head a little and looked about me. The

bulwarks of the ship had gone, but some of the uprights to which

the planks had been nailed remained, and between them I perceived

tall-stemmed trees with tufts of great leaves at the top of them, which

trees seemed to be within a few yards of me. Bright-winged birds flew

about them and in their crowns I saw apes such as the sailors used to

bring home from Barbary. It would seem, then, that I must be in a river

(in fact, it was a little bay or creek, on either side of which these

trees appeared).

Noting these and the creeping plants with beautiful flowers, such as I

had never seen, that climbed up them, and the sweet scents that floated

on the air, and the clear light, now I grew sure that I was dead and had

reached Paradise. Only then how came it that I still lay on the ship,

for never had I heard that such things also went to Paradise? Nay,

I must dream; it was nothing but a dream that I wished were true,

remembering as I did the terrors of that gale-tossed sea. Or, if I did

not dream, then I was in some new world.

While I mused thus I heard a sound of soft footsteps and presently saw

a figure bending over me. It was Kari, very thin and hollow-eyed, much,

indeed, as he had been when I found him on the quay in London, but still

Kari without doubt. He looked at me in his grave fashion, then said

softly:

“Master awake?”

“Yes, Kari,” I said, “but tell me, where am I?”

He did not answer at once but went away and returned presently with

a bowl from which he bade me drink, holding it to my lips. I did

so, swallowing what seemed to be broth though I thought it strangely

flavoured, after which I felt much stronger, for whatever was in that

broth ran through my veins like wine. At last he spoke in his queer

English.

“Master,” he said, “when we still in Thames River, you ask me whether we

should run ashore into the hands of the hunters who try to catch us,

or sail on. I answer, ‘You have God and I have God and better fall into

hands of gods than into hands of men.’ So we sail on into the big storm.

For long we sail, and though once it turn, always the great wind blew,

behind us. You grow weak and your mind leave you, but I keep you alive

with medicine that I have and for many days I stay awake and steer. Then

at last my mind leave me, too, and I know no more. Three days ago I wake

up and find the ship in this place. Then I eat more medicine and get

strength, also food from people on the shore who think us gods. That all

the story, except that you live, not die. Your God and my God bring us

here safe.”

“Yes, Kari, but where are we?”

“Master, I think in that country from which I come; not in my own land

which is still far away, but still in that country. You remember,” he

added with a flash of his dark eyes, “I always say that you and I go

there together one day.”

“But what is the country, Kari?”

“Master, not know its name. It big and have many names, but you first

white man who ever come here, that why people think you God. Now you go

sleep again; to-morrow we talk.”

I shut my eyes, being so very tired, and as I learned afterwards, slept

for twelve hours or more, to awake on the morning of the following day,

feeling wonderfully stronger and able to eat with appetite. Also Kari

brought me water and washed me, and clean clothes which he had found in

the ship that I put on.

Thus it went on for a long while and day by day I recovered strength

till at length I was almost as I had been when I married Blanche Aleys

in the church of St. Margaret at Westminster. Only now sorrow had

changed me within and without my face had grown more serious, while

to it hung a short yellow beard which, when I looked at my reflection,

seemed to become me well enough. That beard puzzled me much, since

such are not grown in a day, although it is true that as yet it was not

over-long. Weeks must have passed since it began to sprout upon my chin

and as we had been but three days in this place when I woke up, those

weeks without doubt were spent upon the sea.

Whither, then, had we come? Driving all the while before a great gale,

that for most of our voyage had blown from the east, as, if Kari were

right, we had done, this country must be very far away from England.

That it was so, indeed there could be no doubt, since here everything

was different. For example, having been a mariner from my childhood, I

had been taught and observed something of the stars, and noted that the

constellations had changed their places in the heavens, also that

some with which I was familiar were missing, while other new ones had

appeared. Further, the heat was great and constant, even at night

being more than that of our hottest summer day, and the air was full of

stinging insects, which at first troubled me much, though afterwards

I grew hardened to them. In short, everything was changed, and I was

indeed in a new world that was not told of in Europe, but what world?

What world? At least the sea joined it to the old, for beneath me was

still the _Blanche_, which timber by timber I had seen built up upon the

shores of Thames from oaks cut in my own woods.

As soon as I was strong enough, I went over the ship, or what was left

of her. It was a marvel that she had floated for so long, since her hull

was shattered. Indeed, I do not think she could have done so, save for

the fine wool that was packed into the lower part of her, which wool

seemed to have swollen when it grew wet and to have kept the water out.

For the rest she was but a hulk, since both her masts were gone, and

much of the deck with them. Still she had kept afloat and driving into

this creek, had beached herself upon the mud as though it were the

harbour that she sought.

How had we lived through such a journey? The answer seemed to be, after

we were too weak to find or take food, by means of the drug that Kari

cherished in his skin bag, and water of which there was plenty left at

hand in barrels, since the _Blanche_ had been provisioned for a long

voyage to Italy and farther. At least we had lived for weeks, and weeks,

being still young and very strong, and not having been called upon

to suffer great cold, since it would appear that although the gale

continued after the first few days of our flight before it, the weather

had turned warm.

During this time of my recovery, every morning Kari would go ashore,

which he did by means of planks set upon the mud, since we were within

a few feet of the bank of the creek into which a streamlet ran. Later

he would return, bringing with him fish and wildfowl, and corn of a

sort that I did not know, for its grains were a dozen times the size of

wheat, flat-sided, and if ripe, of a yellow colour, which he said he

had purchased from those who dwelt upon the land. On this good food

I feasted, washing it down with ale and wine from the ship’s stores;

indeed never before did I eat so much, not even when I was a boy.

At length, one morning Kari made me put on my armour, the same which I

had taken from the French knight, and fled in from London, that he had

burnished till it shone like silver, and seat myself in a chair upon

what remained of the poop of the ship. When I asked him why, he answered

in order that he might show me to the inhabitants of that land. In this

chair he bade me sit and wait, holding the shield upon my arm and the

bare sword in my right hand.

As I had come to know that Kari never did anything without a reason and

remembered that I was in a strange country where, lacking him, I should

not have lived or could continue to do so, I fell into his humour.

Moreover, I promised that I would remain still and neither speak,

nor smile, nor rise from my chair unless he bade me. So there I sat

glittering in the hot sunshine which burned me through the armour.

Then Kari went ashore and was absent for some time. At length among the

trees and undergrowth I heard the sound of people talking in a strange

tongue. Presently they appeared on the bank of the creek, a great number

of them, very curious people, brown-skinned with long, lank black hair

and large eyes, but not over-tall in stature; men, women and children

together.

Among them were some who wore white robes whom I took to be their

gentlefolk, but the most of them had only cloths or girdles about their

middles. Leading the throng was Kari, who, as it appeared from the

bushes, waved his hand and pointed me out seated in the shining armour

on the ship, the visor up to show my face and the long sword in my hand.

They stared, then, with a low, sighing exclamation, one and all fell

upon their faces and rubbed their brows upon the ground.

As they lay there Kari addressed them, waving his arms and pointing

towards me from time to time. Afterwards I learned that he was telling

them I was a god, for which lie may his soul be forgiven.

The end of it was that he bade them rise and led certain of them who

wore the white robes across the planks to the ship. Here, while they

hung back, he advanced towards me, bowing and kissing the air till

he drew near, then he went upon his knees and laid his hands upon my

steel-clad feet. More, from the bosom of his robe he drew out flowers

which he placed upon my knees as though in offering.

“Now, Master,” he whispered to me, “rise and wave your sword and shout

aloud, to show that you are alive and not an image.”

So up I sprang, circling Wave-Flame about my head and roaring like any

bull of Bashan, for my voice was always loud and carried far. When

they saw the bright sword whirling through the air and heard these

bellowings, uttering cries of fear, those poor folk fled. Indeed most of

them fell from the plank into the mud, where one stuck fast and was like

to drown, had not Kari rescued him, which his brethren were in too great

haste to do.

After they had gone Kari came and said that everything went well and

that henceforward I was not a man but the Spirit of the Sea come to

earth, such a spirit as had never been dreamed of even by the wizards.

Thus then did Hubert of Hastings become a god among those simple people,

who had never before so much as heard of a white man, or seen armour or

a sword of steel.