Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling
page 69 of 231 (29%)
page 69 of 231 (29%)
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was bitten, but Hugh's arm and side clean withered away. I saw him where
he lay along, sucking a fruit in his left hand. His flesh was wasted off his bones, his hair was patched with white, and his hand was blue-veined like a woman's. He put his left arm round my neck and whispered, "Take my sword. It has been thine since Hastings, O my brother, but I can never hold hilt again." We lay there on the high deck talking of Santlache, and, I think, of every day since Santlache, and it came so that we both wept. I was weak, and he little more than a shadow. '"Nay--nay," said Witta, at the helm-rail. "Gold is a good right arm to any man. Look--look at the gold!" He bade Thorkild show us the gold and the elephants' teeth, as though we had been children. He had brought away all the gold on the bank, and twice as much more, that the people of the village gave him for slaying the Devils. They worshipped us as Gods, Thorkild told me: it was one of their old women healed up Hugh's poor arm.' 'How much gold did you get?'asked Dan. 'How can I say? Where we came out with wedges of iron under the rowers' feet we returned with wedges of gold hidden beneath planks. There was dust of gold in packages where we slept and along the side, and crosswise under the benches we lashed the blackened elephants' teeth. '"I had sooner have my right arm," said Hugh, when he had seen all. '"Ahai! That was my fault," said Witta. "I should have taken ransom and landed you in France when first you came aboard, ten months ago." '"It is over-late now," said Hugh, laughing. |
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