A King's Comrade Part 5

"Steady, fool!" he said; "you will have a dozen arrows through you.

"Here, hold him," he said sharply.

And the men fell on me, binding me deftly with a few turns of a line, and then troubling themselves no more about me.

Next moment there was a sharp hiss, and an arrow from the sh.o.r.e stuck in the deck close to me, and another chipped the tail of the dragon and glanced into the sea. I mind noting that many another such splinter had been taken from that stern post, and presently saw--for I lay on my back, helpless--that a flint arrowhead still showed itself through a new coat of paint. It was too deeply bedded to be cut out, or else it was token of some honourable fight. It at least had come from forward, whereas I thought that most of the chips had come from astern, as this new one did. It is strange what little things one will notice when at one's wits' end.

The shouts ash.o.r.e grew more faint, and at last were past. The crew were very silent, but the oars swung steadily, and at last Thorleif came from the midship gangway and saw me. The weary men laid in the oars at that moment, and threw themselves down to rest.

"Ho, Saxon!" he said, "on my word I had forgotten you. Who had you tied up?"

"I did," said Thrond. "He said somewhat about taking back a promise, and wanted to go overboard."

Thorleif stooped and unbound me, and I thanked him.

"Well, you won't go overboard now," he said, nodding toward the sh.o.r.e.

The great rock of Portland was broad off on our right, and maybe we were five miles from the nearest sh.o.r.e. Astern--for we were still heading out to sea--the smoke of burning Weymouth hung black against the blue sky. It was just such a day as yesterday, fair and warm, and the land I loved had never seemed so lovely.

"Let me go, chief," I said; "it is of no use for you to keep me."

"Why," he answered, "I don't know that it is. But your folk would pay no ransom, and it would seem foolish if I had let you go offhand. Not but what your folk have not proved their wisdom, for they have got rid of us pretty cheaply. Odin! how they swarmed on us!"

"Ay," growled Thrond. "I did not dream that so many men could be gathered in so few hours; but they fought anyhow, and it was only a matter of numbers. Well, the place is good enough, and it is but a question of more ships next time."

"Why did not you try an escape when we were all busy in the fight?"

asked Thorleif, turning to me. "I have lost more than one captive in that way."

I told him, and he looked kindly enough at me, and smiled in his grim way.

"You were right in saying that a Saxon's word was good, Thrond," he said.

"I am sorry we can in no way send you back now. Your cousin did his best to win his folk to peace--and fought well when he could not.

Nay, he is not hurt, so far as I know."

"Let me swim ash.o.r.e, if there is no other way," I said, with a dull despair on me.

Thorleif looked at the sea and frowned.

"I could not do it myself," he said. "There is a swift current round yon headland. See, it is setting us eastward even now."

But I did not wait to hear any more; I shook my shoes off, and over I went. The wake of the swift vessel closed over my head as the men shouted, and when I came to the surface I looked back once. It seemed that Thorleif was preventing the men from sending a shower of arrows after me, but in those few moments a long s.p.a.ce of water had widened between us; and I doubt whether they would have hit me, for I could have dived.

Then I headed for sh.o.r.e and freedom, and it was good to be in the water alone with silence round me. As for the other two ships, they were half a mile away from Thorleif's, and I did not heed them. So I never looked back, but gave myself to the warm waves, and saved my strength for the long swim before me. There was not much sea, and what there was set more or less sh.o.r.eward, so that it did not hinder me. Presently I shook myself out of my tunic, and was more free.

I suppose that I swam steadily for an hour before I began to think in earnest what a long way the land yet was from me. In another half hour I had to try to make myself believe that it was growing nearer. Certainly Portland was farther from me, but that was the set of the current; and presently I knew, with a terrible sinking of heart, that the land also was lessening in my sight. The current was sweeping me away from it.

When I understood that, I turned on my back and rested. Then I saw that the ships were not so far away as I had expected. I seemed to have made little way from them also; which puzzled me. They had not yet set sail, and it was almost as if the oars were idle. I think they were not more than a mile off. I could almost have wept with vexation, so utterly did all the toil seem to be thrown away.

However, a matter of two hours in the water when as pleasant as this was nothing to me, for I had stayed as long therein, many a time, for sport. So I hoped to do better with the turn of the tide, and let myself go easily to wait for it.

We had left Weymouth when the flood had three hours more to run, so I had not long to wait. It turned; and I knew when it turned, because the wind against it raised a sea which bid fair to wear me out. I had to go with it more or less.

Then, indeed, the land seemed very dear to me, and I began to think of home and of those who sat there deeming that all was well with me. They would never know how I had ended. I will not say much of all that went on in my mind, save only that I am ashamed of naught that pa.s.sed through it. Nor did I swim less strongly for the thoughts, but struggled on steadily.

And at last the sun set, and the wind came chill over the water, and I knew that little hope was for me. Again I turned on my back and rested, and I grew drowsy, I think.

Now the daylight faded from the sky, and overhead the stars began to come out; but as the sky darkened the sea seemed to grow brighter. Presently all around me seemed to sparkle, and I wondered listlessly that the stars were so bright in the water to one who swam among their reflections. Then the little crests of foam on the waves seemed on fire, and my arms struck sparks, as it were from the water, as the sparks fly from the anvil. Only these were palest blue, not red, and I wondered at them, thinking at first that they were fancy, or from the shine of the bright stars above.

And all of a sudden, ahead of me, moved swiftly in the sea and across my way a sheet of dazzling blue brightness, and it frightened me. Often as I had seen the sea and swum in it, I had never seen the like of this, nor had heard of it. The sheet of silver fire turned and drew toward me, and I ceased swimming, and stood, treading water, watching it. Out of its midmost fires darted long streaks of light, everywhere, lightning swift, coming and going ceaselessly.

Into the midst of that brightness rushed five bolts of flame, and scattered it. The water boiled, alive with the darting fires around me and under my feet, and my heart stood still with terror. Yet I was not harmed. And then I saw one of those great white-hot silver bolts hurl itself from sea to air in a wide arch, and fall back again into the water with a mighty splash; and all the flying water seemed to burn as it fled.

Truly it was but a school of mackerel, and the porpoises which fed on the silver fish, all made wonderful by the eerie fires of a summer sea; but I could not tell that all at once. I think that I knew what it was when the great sea pig leaped, for his shape was plain to me. The shoal went its way, and after it the harmless porpoises. But the sea was fairly alight now; all round me it shone with its soft glow, and my body was wondrous with it, and I seemed to float in naught but light.

Then I think that I wandered in my mind, what with the fright and weariness; for I had been five or six hours in the water, and it was long since I had tasted food. It came to me that I was dead at last, and that I was far in the sky, floating on bright air, with stars above me and stars below. And that seemed good to me. I rested, paddling just enough to keep myself upright and forget my troubles in wonderment.

Surely that was a voice singing! There was a strange melody I had never heard the like of, and it came from the brightness not far from me. I came back to knowledge of where I was with a start, trying to make out from which direction it sounded.

"This is a nixie trying to lure me to the depth," I thought.

"Truly, he need not take the trouble; for thither I must go shortly, without any coaxing."

I turned myself in the water, trying to see if I could make out the singer, but I could not. Seeing that no other was likely to be swimming in Portland race but myself, I had no thought that the song was human.

But I could find nothing. When my face was seaward, I saw far off the ships I had left, indeed; and one seemed to have set her sail, for it showed as a square patch of blackness against the sky, but no voice could come from them to me. Presently I thought that somewhat dark rose and fell on the little waves between me and her, but that was doubtless the tunic I had given to the water. I did not think of wondering why I still saw it after all this long swim, but I seemed to have made no headway from the ships, which were as near as when I last looked at them.

So I turned again and swam easily, as I thought, sh.o.r.eward. The song went on, but it seemed to ring in my ears as the drone of our miller's pipes comes up from the river on a still summer evening.

Yet it grew more plain.

Then I saw the ships before me. I was swimming in a circle, my right arm mastering the left, I suppose. That told me how weary I was, if I had not known it to the full before. At that moment the song, which was close to me, stopped, and a fiery arm rose from a wave top against the sky, and seemed to hail me.

"Ho, Wilfrid! have you had enough yet? By Aegir himself, you are a fine swimmer!"

Through the brightness came a sparkling head, round which the foam curled in fleecy fire; and shining as I shone, Thorleif the viking floated up to me and trod the water.

"What, you also?" I said. "Both of us drowned together at last?"

And with that I went into the brightness below me, and troubled no more for anything.

CHAPTER III. HOW WILFRID MET ECGBERT THE ATHELING.

It was indeed Thorleif whom I saw as the deadly faintness of utter weariness and want of food came over me, and I sank. The Danes had hardly lost sight of me from the ships, for they had drifted backward and forward on the tide as I drifted, and I was never more than a mile from them. Until the tide turned to the eastward there had been no wind of any use to them, and that which came with sunset was barely enough to give them steerage way. So they had watched me for want of somewhat else to do, being worn out with the long fight; and when I was far off, some keen-sighted seaman would spy my head as it rose on a wave, and cry that the Saxon was yet swimming.

Now, if there is one thing that the northern folk of our kin think much of in the way of sports, it is swimming, and it seems that I won high praise from all. Maybe they did not consider how a man who is trying to win his home again from captivity is likely to do more than his best. At all events, I had never so much as tried a swim like that before, nor do I think that I could compa.s.s it again.

Presently, when the turn of the tide brought with it no eddy into the bay which set me homeward, Thorleif would let me go no longer, and followed me in the boat with two men; which was easy enough, for I swam between the ship and the place where the red glow of burning Weymouth still shone in the northern sky. He could not leave me to drown.

For a time, in the growing dusk, he could not find me. Then the sea fires showed me black against their glow, and the sea tempted him, and he leaped in after me, singing to cheer me, for it was plain that I was nearly spent. When he brought me up from the depth again I had little of the drowned man about me, for I had fainted. I remember coming round painfully after that swoon, and eating and drinking, and straightway falling into a dreamless sleep on the deck of the ship; and I also remember the untoldly evil and fishy smell of the seal oil they had rubbed me with.