committed
my soul to God as well as I was able in my half-drowned state, wishing
that my miseries were ended.

The darkness came down, but still the thunder roared and the lightning
blazed, and by the flare of it I caught sight of snow-capped mountains
far away upon the coast, also of Kari clinging to the reeds of the
_balsa_ at my side, and from time to time kissing the golden image of
Pachacamac which hung about his neck. Presently he set his lips against
my ear and shouted:

"Be bold! Our gods are still with us in storm."

"Yes," I answered, "and soon we shall be with our gods--in peace."

After this I heard no more of him, and fell to thinking with such wits
as were left to me of how many perils we had passed since we saw the
shores of Thames, and that it seemed sad that all should have been for
nothing, since it would have been better to die at the beginning than
now at the end, after so much misery. Then the glare of the lightning
shone upon the handle of the sword Wave-Flame, which was still strapped
about me, and I remembered the rune written upon it which my mother had
rendered to me upon the morning of the fight against the Frenchmen. How
did it run?

He who lifts Wave-Flame on high
In love shall live and in battle die.
Storm-tossed o'er wide seas shall roam
And in strange lands shall make his home.
Conquering, conquered shall he be
And far away shall sleep with me.

It fitted well, though of the love I had known little and that most
unhappy, and the battle in which I must die was one with water. Also,
I had conquered nothing who myself was conquered by Fate. In short, the
thing could be read two ways, like all prophecies, and only one line of
it was true beyond a doubt--namely, that Wave-Flame and I should sleep
together.

Awhile later the lightning shone awesomely, like to the swords of a
whole army of destroying angels, so that the sky became alive with fire.
In its light for an instant I saw ahead of us great breakers, and beyond
them what looked like a dark mass of land. Now we were in them, for
the first of those hungry, curling waves got a hold of the _balsa_ and
tossed it up dizzily, then flung it down into a deep valley of water.
Another came and another, till my senses reeled and went. I cried to
St. Hubert, but he was a land saint and could not help me; so I cried to
Another greater than he.

My last vision was of myself riding a huge breaker as though it we