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. He