re 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
u