'My Lady being dead, I cared nothing for signs and omens, nor Hugh
either. We took that wine-ship to go to Bordeaux; but the wind failed
while we were yet in sight of Pevensey, a thick mist hid us, and we
drifted with the tide along the cliffs to the west. Our company was, for
the most part, merchants returning to France, and we were laden with
wool and there were three couple of tall hunting-dogs chained to the
rail. Their master was a knight of Artois. His name I never learned, but
his shield bore gold pieces on a red ground, and he limped, much as I
do, from a wound which he had got in his youth at Mantes siege. He
served the Duke of Burgundy against the Moors in Spain, and was
returning to that war with his dogs. He sang us strange Moorish songs
that first night, and half persuaded us to go with him. I was on
pilgrimage to forget--which is what no pilgrimage brings. I think I
would have gone, but ...

'Look you how the life and fortune of man changes! Towards morning a
Dane ship, rowing silently, struck against us in the mist, and while we
rolled hither and yon Hugh, leaning over the rail, fell outboard. I
leaped after him, and we two tumbled aboard the Dane, and were caught
and bound ere we could rise. Our own ship was swallowed up in the mist.
I judge the Knight of the Gold Pieces muzzled his dogs with his cloak,
lest they should give tongue and betray the merchants, for I heard their
baying suddenly stop.

'We lay bound among the benches till morning, when the Danes dragged us
to the high deck by the steering-place, and their captain--Witta, he was
called--turned us over with his foot. Bracelets of gold from elbow to
armpit he wore, and his red hair was long as a woman's, and came down in
plaited locks on his shoulder. He was stout, with bowed legs and long