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Page 22
'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.
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