What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.
She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--
Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,--
And steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter quarters.
You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--
To pitch her sides and go over her cables!
Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:
And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow
Is all we have left through the months to follow.
Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old
Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook
at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the Daisy, but for
exploring expeditions she was the Golden Hind or the Long Serpent, or
some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the
brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of
hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the Golden Hind drew
quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the
gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks
beyond the garden they pulled themselves upstream by the low branches.
That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old
sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but
on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and
the sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and
heavy with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees,
the sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep
on his watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to
dive into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the
only things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who
flapped down out of the sunshine for a drink.
When they reached Otter Pool the Golden Hind grounded comfortably on a
shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water
trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the
mill-stream to the brook. A big trout--the children knew him
well--rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sailed round the bend,
while, once in just so often, the brook rose a fraction of an inch
against all the wet pebbles, and they watched the slow draw and shiver
of a breath of air through the tree-tops. Then the little voices of
the slipping water began again.
'It's like the shadows talking, isn't it?' said Una. She had given up
trying to read. Dan lay over the bows, trailing his hands in the
current. They heard feet on the gravel-bar that runs half across the
pool and saw Sir Richard Dalyngridge standing over them.
'Was yours a dangerous voyage?' he asked, smiling.
'She bumped a lot, sir,' said Dan. 'There's hardly any water this
summer.'
'Ah, the brook was deeper and wider when my children played at Danish
pirates. Are you pirate-folk?'
'Oh no. We gave up being pirates years ago,'explained Una. 'We're
nearly always explorers now. Sailing round the world, you know.'
'Round?' said Sir Richard. He sat him in the comfortable crotch of an
old ash-root on the bank. 'How can it be round?'
'Wasn't it in your books?' Dan suggested. He had been doing geography
at his last lesson.
'I can neither write nor read,' he replied. 'Canst thou read, child?'
'Yes,' said Dan, 'barring the very long words.'
'Wonderful! Read to me, that I may hear for myself.'
Dan flushed, but opened the book and began--gabbling a little--at 'The
Discoverer of the North Cape.'
'Othere, the old sea-captain,
Who dwelt in Helgoland,
To King Alfred, the lover of truth,
Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,
Which he held in his brown right hand.'
'But--but--this I know! This is an old song! This I have heard sung!
This is a miracle,' Sir Richard interrupted. 'Nay, do not stop!' He
leaned forward, and the shadows of the leaves slipped and slid upon his
chain-mail.
"'I ploughed the land with horses,
But my heart was ill at ease,
For the old seafaring men
Came to me now and then
With their sagas of the seas."'
His hand fell on the hilt of the great sword. 'This is truth,' he
cried, 'for so did it happen to me,' and he beat time delightedly to
the tramp of verse after verse.
"'And now the land," said Othere,
"Bent southward suddenly,
And I followed the curving shore,
And ever southward bore
Into a nameless sea."'
'A nameless sea!' he repeated. 'So did I--so did Hugh and I.'
'Where did you go? Tell us,' said Una.
'Wait. Let me hear all first.' So Dan read to the poem's very end.
'Good,' said the knight. 'That is Othere's tale--even so I have heard
the men in the Dane ships sing it. Not those same valiant words, but
something like to them.'
'Have you ever explored North?' Dan shut the book.
'Nay. My venture was South. Farther South than any man has fared,
Hugh and I went down with Witta and his heathen.' He jerked the tall
sword forward, and leaned on it with both hands; but his eyes looked
long past them.
'I thought you always lived here,' said Una, timidly.
'Yes; while my Lady Aelueva lived. But she died. She died. Then, my
eldest son being a man, I asked De Aquila's leave that he should hold
the Manor while I went on some journey or pilgrimage--to forget. De
Aquila, whom the Second William had made Warden of Pevensey in Earl
Mortain's place, was very old then, but still he rode his tall, roan
horses, and in the saddle he looked like a little white falcon. When
Hugh, at Dallington, over yonder, heard what I did, he sent for my
second son, whom being unmarried he had ever looked upon as his own
child, and, by De Aquila's leave, gave him the Manor of Dallington to
hold till he should return. Then Hugh came with me.'
'When did this happen?' said Dan.
'That I can answer to the very day, for as we rode with De Aquila by
Pevensey--have I said that he was Lord of Pevensey and of the Honour of
the Eagle?---to the Bordeaux ship that fetched him his wines yearly out
of France, a Marsh man ran to us crying that he had seen a great black
goat which bore on his back the body of the King, and that the goat had
spoken to him. On that same day Red William our King, the Conqueror's
son, died of a secret arrow while he hunted in a forest. "This is a
cross matter," said De Aquila, "to meet on the threshold of a journey.
If Red William be dead I may have to fight for my lands. Wait a
little."
'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh
either. We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed
while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we
drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west. Our company was,
for the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden
with wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to
the rail. Their master was a knight of Artois. His name I never
learned, but his shield bore gold pieces on a red ground, and he
limped, much as I do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at
Mantes siege. He served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in
Spain, and was returning to that war with his dogs. He sang us strange
Moorish songs that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him.
I was on pilgrimage to forget--which is what no pilgrimage brings. I
think I would have gone, but...
'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a
Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we
rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard. I
leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught
and bound ere we could rise. Our own ship was swallowed up in the
mist. I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his
cloak, lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I
heard their baying suddenly stop.
'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us
to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain--Witta, he
was called--turned us over with his foot. Bracelets of gold from elbow
to armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came
down in plaited locks on his shoulder. He was stout, with bowed legs
and long arms. He spoiled us of all we had, but when he laid hand on
Hugh's sword and saw the runes on the blade hastily he thrust it back.
Yet his covetousness overcame him and he tried again and again, and the
third time the Sword sang loud and angrily, so that the rowers leaned
on their oars to listen. Here they all spoke together, screaming like
gulls, and a Yellow Man, such as I have never seen, came to the high
deck and cut our bonds. He was yellow--not from sickness, but by
nature--yellow as honey, and his eyes stood endwise in his head.'
'How do you mean?' said Una, her chin on her hand.
'Thus,' said Sir Richard. He put a finger to the corner of each eye,
and pushed it up till his eyes narrowed to slits.
'Why, you look just like a Chinaman!' cried Dan. 'Was the man a
Chinaman?'
'I know not what that may be. Witta had found him half dead among ice
on the shores of Muscovy. We thought he was a devil. He crawled
before us and brought food in a silver dish which these sea-wolves had
robbed from some rich abbey, and Witta with his own hands gave us wine.
He spoke a little in French, a little in South Saxon, and much in the
Northman's tongue. We asked him to set us ashore, promising to pay him
better ransom than he would get price if he sold us to the Moors--as
once befell a knight of my acquaintance sailing from Flushing.
"'Not by my father Guthrum's head," said he. "The Gods sent ye into my
ship for a luck-offering."
'At this I quaked, for I knew it was still the Danes' custom to
sacrifice captives to their Gods for fair weather.
"'A plague on thy four long bones!" said Hugh. "What profit canst thou
make of poor old pilgrims that can neither work nor fight?"
"'Gods forbid I should fight against thee, poor Pilgrim with the
Singing Sword," said he. "Come with us and be poor no more. Thy teeth
are far apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich."
"'What if we will not come?" said Hugh. "'Swim to England or France,"
said Witta. "We are midway between the two. Unless ye choose to drown
yourselves no hair of your head will be harmed here aboard. We think
ye bring us luck, and I myself know the runes on that Sword are good."
He turned and bade them hoist sail.
'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the
ship was full of wonders.'
'What was she like?' said Dan.
'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by
fifteen oars a side,' the knight answered. 'At her bows was a deck
under which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a
painted door from the rowers' benches. Here Hugh and I slept, with
Witta and the Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool. I
remember'--he laughed to himself--'when first we entered there a loud
voice cried, "Out swords! Out swords! Kill, kill!" Seeing us start
Witta laughed, and showed us it was but a great-beaked grey bird with a
red tail. He sat her on his shoulder, and she called for bread and
wine hoarsely, and prayed him to kiss her. Yet she was no more than a
silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He looked at their smiling faces.
'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot.
It's just what Pollies do.'
'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man,
whose name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue
bowl with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a
fine thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and
as long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta,
abode an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art
Magic out of his own country that lay three years' journey southward.
The Evil Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and
therefore, look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.'
'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.
'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the
ship rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this
blind Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the
South. Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way
across the unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the
children. 'How think ye? Was it sorcery?'
'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass
pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring. 'The
glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.'
The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron
shook and swung in just this fashion. Now it is still. Now it points
to the South.'
'North,' said Dan.
'Nay, South! There is the South,'said Sir Richard. Then they both
laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points
to the North, the other must point to the South.
'Te,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue. 'There can be no sorcery
if a child carries it. Wherefore does it point South--or North?'
'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una.
Sir Richard looked relieved. 'Then it may still be magic. It was magic
to us. And so we voyaged. When the wind served we hoisted sail, and
lay all up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break
the spray. When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the Yellow Man
sat by the Wise Iron, and Witta steered. At first I feared the great
white-flowering waves, but as I saw how wisely Witta led his ship among
them I grew bolder. Hugh liked it well from the first. My skill is
not upon the water; and rocks and whirlpools such as we saw by the West
Isles of France, where an oar caught on a rock and broke, are much
against my stomach. We sailed South across a stormy sea, where by
moonlight, between clouds, we saw a Flanders ship roll clean over and
sink. Again, though Hugh laboured with Witta all night, I lay under
the deck with the Talking Bird, and cared not whether I lived or died.
There is a sickness of the sea which for three days is pure death!
When we next saw land Witta said it was Spain, and we stood out to sea.
That coast was full of ships busy in the Duke's war against the Moors,
and we feared to be hanged by the Duke's men or sold into slavery by
the Moors. So we put into a small harbour which Witta knew. At night
men came down with loaded mules, and Witta exchanged amber out of the
North against little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen
pots. The pots he put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid
on the bottom of the ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle
which till then had been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps
of sweet-smelling grey amber--a little morsel no bigger than a
thumb-nail purchased a cask of wine. But I speak like a merchant.'
'No, no! Tell us what you had to eat,' cried Dan.
'Meat dried in the sun, and dried fish and ground beans, Witta took in;
and corded frails of a certain sweet, soft fruit, which the Moors use,
which is like paste of figs, but with thin, long stones. Aha! Dates
is the name.
"'Now," said Witta, when the ship was loaded, "I counsel you strangers
to pray to your Gods, for, from here on, our road is No Man's road." He
and his men killed a black goat for sacrifice on the bows; and the
Yellow Man brought out a small, smiling image of dull-green stone and
burned incense before it. Hugh and I commended ourselves to God, and
Saint Barnabas, and Our Lady of the Assumption, who was specially dear
to my Lady. We were not young, but I think no shame to say whenas we
drove out of that secret harbour at sunrise over a still sea, we two
rejoiced and sang as did the knights of old when they followed our
great Duke to England. Yet was our leader an heathen pirate; all our
proud fleet but one galley perilously overloaded; for guidance we
leaned on a pagan sorcerer; and our port was beyond the world's end.
Witta told us that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along
the shores of Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and
beads. There had he bought much gold, and no few elephants' teeth, and
thither by help of the Wise Iron would Witta go. Witta feared
nothing--except to be poor.
"'My father told me," said Witta, "that a great Shoal runs three days'
sail out from that land, and south of the shoal lies a Forest which
grows in the sea. South and east of the Forest my father came to a
place where the men hid gold in their hair; but all that country, he
said, was full of Devils who lived in trees, and tore folk limb from
limb. How think ye?"
"'Gold or no gold," said Hugh, fingering his sword, "it is a joyous
venture. Have at these Devils of thine, Witta!"
"'Venture!" said Witta sourly. "I am only a poor sea-thief. I do not
set my life adrift on a plank for joy, or the venture. Once I beach
ship again at Stavanger, and feel the wife's arms round my neck, I'll
seek no more ventures. A ship is heavier care than a wife or cattle."
'He leaped down among the rowers, chiding them for their little
strength and their great stomachs. Yet Witta was a wolf in fight, and
a very fox in cunning.
'We were driven South by a storm, and for three days and three nights
he took the stern-oar, and threddled the longship through the sea.
When it rose beyond measure he brake a pot of whale's oil upon the
water, which wonderfully smoothed it, and in that anointed patch he
turned her head to the wind and threw out oars at the end of a rope, to
make, he said, an anchor at which we lay rolling sorely, but dry. This
craft his father Guthrum had shown him. He knew, too, all the
Leech-Book of Bald, who was a wise doctor, and he knew the Ship-Book of
Hlaf the Woman, who robbed Egypt. He knew all the care of a ship.
'After the storm we saw a mountain whose top was covered with snow and
pierced the clouds. The grasses under this mountain, boiled and eaten,
are a good cure for soreness of the gums and swelled ankles. We lay
there eight days, till men in skins threw stones at us. When the heat
increased Witta spread a cloth on bent sticks above the rowers, for the
wind failed between the Island of the Mountain and the shore of Africa,
which is east of it. That shore is sandy, and we rowed along it within
three bowshots. Here we saw whales, and fish in the shape of shields,
but longer than our ship. Some slept, some opened their mouths at us,
and some danced on the hot waters. The water was hot to the hand, and
the sky was hidden by hot, grey mists, out of which blew a fine dust
that whitened our hair and beards of a morning. Here, too, were fish
that flew in the air like birds. They would fall on the laps of the
rowers, and when we went ashore we would roast and eat them.'
The knight paused to see if the children doubted him, but they only
nodded and said, 'Go on.'
'The yellow land lay on our left, the grey sea on our right. Knight
though I was, I pulled my oar amongst the rowers. I caught seaweed and
dried it, and stuffed it between the pots of beads lest they should
break. Knighthood is for the land. At sea, look you, a man is but a
spurless rider on a bridleless horse. I learned to make strong knots
in ropes--yes, and to join two ropes end to end, so that even Witta
could scarcely see where they had been married. But Hugh had tenfold
more sea-cunning than I. Witta gave him charge of the rowers of the
left side. Thorkild of Borkum, a man with a broken nose, that wore a
Norman steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and
sang against the other. They saw that no man Was idle. Truly, as Hugh
said, and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a
Manor.
'How? Thus. There was water to fetch from the shore when we could
find it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of
the decks and benches to keep them sweet. Also we hauled the ship out
on low islands and emptied all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and
burned off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and
smoked below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the
Woman orders in her Ship-Book. Once when we were thus stripped, and
the ship lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as
though she saw an enemy. Witta vowed he would wring her neck.'
'Poor Polly! Did he?' said Una.
'Nay. She was the ship's bird. She could call all the rowers by
name... Those were good days--for a wifeless man--with Witta and his
heathen--beyond the world's end... After many weeks we came on the
great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to
sea. We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with
the sound of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found
a naked black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron
loaded us with fruits and grasses and eggs. Witta scratched his head
at them in sign he would buy gold. They had no gold, but they
understood the sign (all the gold-traders hide their gold in their
thick hair), for they pointed along the coast. They beat, too, on
their chests with their clenched hands, and that, if we had known it,
was an evil sign.'
'What did it mean?' said Dan.
'Patience. Ye shall hear. We followed the coast eastward sixteen days
(counting time by sword-cuts on the helm-rail) till we came to the
Forest in the Sea. Trees grew there out of mud, arched upon lean and
high roots, and many muddy waterways ran allwhither into darkness,
under the trees. Here we lost the sun. We followed the winding
channels between the trees, and where we could not row we laid hold of
the crusted roots and hauled ourselves along. The water was foul, and
great glittering flies tormented us. Morning and evening a blue mist
covered the mud, which bred fevers. Four of our rowers sickened, and
were bound to their benches, lest they should leap overboard and be
eaten by the monsters of the mud. The Yellow Man lay sick beside the
Wise Iron, rolling his head and talking in his own tongue. Only the
Bird throve. She sat on Witta's shoulder and screamed in that noisome,
silent darkness. Yes; I think it was the silence we most feared.'
He paused to listen to the comfortable home noises of the brook.
'When we had lost count of time among those black gullies and swashes
we heard, as it were, a drum beat far off, and following it we broke
into a broad, brown river by a hut in a clearing among fields of
pumpkins. We thanked God to see the sun again. The people of the
village gave the good welcome, and Witta scratched his head at them
(for gold), and showed them our iron and beads. They ran to the
bank--we were still in the ship--and pointed to our swords and bows,
for always when near shore we lay armed. Soon they fetched store of
gold in bars and in dust from their huts, and some great blackened
elephants' teeth. These they piled on the bank, as though to tempt us,
and made signs of dealing blows in battle, and pointed up to the
tree-tops, and to the forest behind. Their captain or chief sorcerer
then beat on his chest with his fists, and gnashed his teeth.
'Said Thorkild of Borkum: "Do they mean we must fight for all this
gear?" and he half drew sword.
"'Nay," said Hugh. "I think they ask us to league against some enemy."
"'I like this not," said Witta, of a sudden. "Back into mid-stream."
'So we did, and sat still all, watching the black folk and the gold
they piled on the bank. Again we heard drums beat in the forest, and
the people fled to their huts, leaving the gold unguarded.
'Then Hugh, at the bows, pointed without speech, and we saw a great
Devil come out of the forest. He shaded his brows with his hand, and
moistened his pink tongue between his lips--thus.'
'A Devil!' said Dan, delightfully horrified.
'Yea. Taller than a man; covered with reddish hair. When he had well
regarded our ship, he beat on his chest with his fists till it sounded
like rolling drums, and came to the bank swinging all his body between
his long arms, and gnashed his teeth at us. Hugh loosed arrow, and
pierced him through the throat. He fell roaring, and three other
Devils ran out of the forest and hauled him into a tall tree out of
sight. Anon they cast down the blood-stained arrow, and lamented
together among the leaves.
Witta saw the gold on the bank; he was loath to leave it. "Sirs," said
he (no man had spoken till then), "yonder is what we have come so far
and so painfully to find, laid out to our very hand. Let us row in
while these Devils bewail themselves, and at least bear off what we
may."
'Bold as a wolf, cunning as a fox was Witta! He set four archers on
the fore-deck to shoot the Devils if they should leap from the tree,
which was close to the bank. He manned ten oars a side, and bade them
watch his hand to row in or back out, and so coaxed he them toward the
bank. But none would set foot ashore, though the gold was within ten
paces. No man is hasty to his hanging! They whimpered at their oars
like beaten hounds, and Witta bit his fingers for rage.
'Said Hugh of a sudden, "Hark!" At first we thought it was the buzzing
of the glittering flies on the water; but it grew loud and fierce, so
that all men heard.'
'What?' said Dan and Una.
'It was the Sword.' Sir Richard patted the smooth hilt. 'It sang as a
Dane sings before battle. "I go," said Hugh, and he leaped from the
bows and fell among the gold. I was afraid to my four bones' marrow,
but for shame's sake I followed, and Thorkild of Borkum leaped after
me. None other came. "Blame me not," cried Witta behind us, "I must
abide by my ship." We three had no time to blame or praise. We stooped
to the gold and threw it back over our shoulders, one hand on our
swords and one eye on the tree, which nigh overhung us.
'I know not how the Devils leaped down, or how the fight began. I
heard Hugh cry: "Out! out!" as though he were at Santlache again; I
saw Thorkild's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand,
and I felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear. They say that
till Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship
inshore; and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone
had pierced the Devil that fought me. I do not know. I went to it in
my mail-shirt, which saved my skin. With long-sword and belt-dagger I
fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands, and who
whirled me back and forth like a dead branch. He had me by the waist,
my arms to my side, when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the
shoulders, and he loosened grip. I passed my sword twice through him,
and he crutched himself away between his long arms, coughing and
moaning. Next, as I remember, I saw Thorkild of Borkum, bare-headed
and smiling, leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed
his teeth. Then Hugh passed, his sword shifted to his left hand, and I
wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man; and
thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face, and we
were in sunshine on the open sea. That was twenty days after.'
'What had happened? Did Hugh die?'the children asked.
'Never was such a fight fought by christened man,' said Sir Richard.
'An arrow from the ship had saved me from my Devil, and Thorkild of
Borkum had given back before his Devil, till the bowmen on the ship
could shoot it all full of arrows from near by; but Hugh's Devil was
cunning, and had kept behind trees, where no arrow could reach. Body
to body there, by stark strength of sword and hand, had Hugh slain him,
and, dying, the Thing had clenched his teeth on the sword. Judge what
teeth they were!'
Sir Richard turned the sword again that the children might see the two
great chiselled gouges on either side of the blade.
'Those same teeth met in Hugh's right arm and side,' Sir Richard went
on. 'I? Oh, I had no more than a broken foot and a fever. Thorkild's
ear was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away. I saw him
where he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand. His flesh was
wasted off his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was
blue-veined like a woman's. He put his left arm round my neck and
whispered, "Take my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my
brother, but I can never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high
deck talking of Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache,
and it came so that we both wept. I was weak, and he little more than
a shadow.
"'Nay--nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail. "Gold is a good right arm
to any man. Look--look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold
and the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children. He had
brought away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the
people of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped
us as Gods, Thorkild told me: it was one of their old women healed up
Hugh's poor arm.'
'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan. 'How can I say? Where we came
out with wedges of iron under the rowers' feet we returned with wedges
of gold hidden beneath planks. There was dust of gold in packages
where we slept and along the side, and cross-wise under the benches we
lashed the blackened elephants' teeth.
"'I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all.
"'Ahai! That was my fault," said Witta. "I should have taken ransom
and landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago."
"'It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing.
'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock. "But think!" said he. "If I
had let ye go--which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye
more than brothers--if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been
horribly slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye
might have been murdered by land-thieves, or ye might have died of the
plague at an inn. Think of this and do not blame me overmuch, Hugh.
See! I will only take a half of the gold."
"'I blame thee not at all, Witta," said Hugh. "It was a joyous
venture, and we thirty-five here have done what never men have done.
If I live till England, I will build me a stout keep over Dallington
out of my share."
"'I will buy cattle and amber and warm red cloth for the wife," said
Witta, "and I will hold all the land at the head of Stavanger Fiord.
Many will fight for me now. But first we must turn North, and with
this honest treasure aboard I pray we meet no pirate ships."
'We did not laugh. We were careful. We were afraid lest we should
lose one grain of our gold, for which we had fought Devils.
"'Where is the Sorcerer?" said I, for Witta was looking at the Wise
Iron in the box, and I could not see the Yellow Man.
"'He has gone to his own country," said he. "He rose up in the night
while we were beating out of that forest in the mud, and said that he
could see it behind the trees. He leaped out on the mud, and did not
answer when we called; so we called no more. He left the Wise Iron,
which is all that I care for--and see, the Spirit still points to the
South."
'We were troubled for fear that the Wise Iron should fail us now that
its Yellow Man had gone, and when we saw the Spirit still served us we
grew afraid of too strong winds, and of shoals, and of careless leaping
fish, and of all the people on all the shores where we landed.'
'Why?' said Dan.
'Because of the gold--because of our gold. Gold changes men
altogether. Thorkild of Borkum did not change. He laughed at Witta
for his fears, and at us for our counselling Witta to furl sail when
the ship pitched at all.
"'Better be drowned out of hand," said Thorkild of Borkum, "than go
tied to a deck-load of yellow dust."
'He was a landless man, and had been slave to some King in the East.
He would have beaten out the gold into deep bands to put round the
oars, and round the prow.
'Yet, though he vexed himself for the gold, Witta waited upon Hugh like
a woman, lending him his shoulder when the ship rolled, and tying of
ropes from side to side that Hugh might hold by them. But for Hugh, he
said--and so did all his men--they would never have won the gold. I
remember Witta made a little, thin gold ring for our Bird to swing in.
'Three months we rowed and sailed and went ashore for fruits or to
clean the ship. When we saw wild horsemen, riding among sand-dunes,
flourishing spears, we knew we were on the Moors' coast, and stood over
north to Spain; and a strong south-west wind bore us in ten days to a
coast of high red rocks, where we heard a hunting-horn blow among the
yellow gorse and knew it was England.
"'Now find ye Pevensey yourselves," said Witta. "I love not these
narrow ship-filled seas."
'He set the dried, salted head of the Devil, which Hugh had killed,
high on our prow, and all boats fled from us. Yet, for our gold's sake,
we were more afraid than they. We crept along the coast by night till
we came to the chalk cliffs, and so east to Pevensey. Witta would not
come ashore with us, though Hugh promised him wine at Dallington enough
to swim in. He was on fire to see his wife, and ran into the Marsh
after sunset, and there he left us and our share of gold, and backed
out on the same tide. He made no promise; he swore no oath; he looked
for no thanks; but to Hugh, an armless man, and to me, an old cripple
whom he could have flung into the sea, he passed over wedge upon wedge,
packet upon packet of gold and dust of gold, and only ceased when we
would take no more. As he stooped from the rail to bid us farewell he
stripped off his right-arm bracelets and put them all on Hugh's left,
and he kissed Hugh on the cheek. I think when Thorkild of Borkum bade
the rowers give way we were near weeping. It is true that Witta was an
heathen and a pirate; true it is he held us by force many months in his
ship, but I loved that bow-legged, blue-eyed man for his great
boldness, his cunning, his skill, and, beyond all, for his simplicity.'
'Did he get home all right?' said Dan.
'I never knew. We saw him hoist sail under the moon-track and stand
away. I have prayed that he found his wife and the children.'
'And what did you do?'
'We waited on the Marsh till the day. Then I sat by the gold, all tied
in an old sail, while Hugh went to Pevensey, and De Aquila sent us
horses.'
Sir Richard crossed hands on his sword-hilt, and stared down stream
through the soft warm shadows.
'A whole shipload of gold!' said Una, looking at the little Golden
Hind. 'But I'm glad I didn't see the Devils.'
'I don't believe they were Devils,'Dan whispered back.
'Eh?' said Sir Richard. 'Witta's father warned him they were
unquestionable Devils. One must believe one's father, and not one's
children. What were my Devils, then?'
Dan flushed all over. 'I--I only thought,' he stammered; 'I've got a
book called The Gorilla Hunters--it's a continuation of Coral Island,
sir--and it says there that the gorillas (they're big monkeys, you
know) were always chewing iron up.'
'Not always,' said Una. 'Only twice.' They had been reading The
Gorilla Hunters in the orchard.
'Well, anyhow, they always drummed on their chests, like Sir Richard's
did, before they went for people. And they built houses in trees, too.'
'Ha!' Sir Richard opened his eyes. 'Houses like flat nests did our
Devils make, where their imps lay and looked at us. I did not see them
(I was sick after the fight), but Witta told me, and, lo, ye know it
also? Wonderful! Were our Devils only nest-building apes? Is there no
sorcery left in the world?'
'I don't know,' answered Dan, uncomfortably. 'I've seen a man take
rabbits out of a hat, and he told us we could see how he did it, if we
watched hard. And we did.'
'But we didn't,' said Una, sighing. 'Oh! there's Puck!'
The little fellow, brown and smiling, peered between two stems of an
ash, nodded, and slid down the bank into the cool beside them.
'No sorcery, Sir Richard?' he laughed, and blew on a full dandelion
head he had picked.
'They tell me that Witta's Wise Iron was a toy. The boy carries such
an iron with him. They tell me our Devils were apes, called gorillas!'
said Sir Richard, indignantly.
'That is the sorcery of books,' said Puck. 'I warned thee they were
wise children. All people can be wise by reading of books.'
'But are the books true?' Sir Richard frowned. 'I like not all this
reading and writing.' 'Ye-es,' said Puck, holding the naked dandelion
head at arm's length. 'But if we hang all fellows who write falsely,
why did De Aquila not begin with Gilbert the Clerk? He was false
enough.'
'Poor false Gilbert. Yet, in his fashion, he was bold,' said Sir
Richard.
'What did he do?' said Dan.
'He wrote,' said Sir Richard. 'Is the tale meet for children, think
you?' He looked at Puck; but 'Tell us! Tell us!' cried Dan and Una
together.