m enough to keep my
head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."

"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.

"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some
outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little
shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke
together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words
as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he
fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two
inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in
his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave
the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man I
consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I
sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and
the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the
Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if
they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of
parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find
therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even
he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached
my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,--

"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed
for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can
frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised
against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy
sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'

"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found
dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence,
that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for
in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me
when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of
romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not
babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just
said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that
I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars,
which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as
idols. And he smiled again in that grewsome fashion of