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.