steel cap, had the rowers of the right, and each side rowed and sang
against the other. They saw that no man was idle. Truly, as Hugh said,
and Witta would laugh at him, a ship is all more care than a Manor.

'How? Thus. There was water to fetch from the shore when we could find
it, as well as wild fruit and grasses, and sand for scrubbing of the
decks and benches to keep them sweet. Also we hauled the ship out on low
islands and emptied all her gear, even to the iron wedges, and burned
off the weed, that had grown on her, with torches of rush, and smoked
below the decks with rushes dampened in salt water, as Hlaf the Woman
orders in her Ship-Book. Once when we were thus stripped, and the ship
lay propped on her keel, the bird cried, "Out swords!" as though she saw
an enemy. Witta vowed he would wring her neck.'

'Poor Polly! Did he?' said Una.

'Nay. She was the ship's bird. She could call all the rowers by name.... Those were good days--for a wifeless man--with Witta and his
heathen--beyond the world's end. ... After many weeks we came on the
great Shoal which stretched, as Witta's father had said, far out to sea.
We skirted it till we were giddy with the sight and dizzy with the sound
of bars and breakers, and when we reached land again we found a naked
black people dwelling among woods, who for one wedge of iron loaded us
with fruits and grasses and eggs. Witta scratched his head at them in
sign he would buy gold. They had no gold, but they understood the sign
(all the gold-traders hide their gold in their thick hair), for they
pointed along the coast. They beat, too, on their chests with their
clenched hands, and that, if we had known it, was an evil sign.'

'What did it mean?' said Dan.