up the heavy stone with which the ship was moored, a stone heavier far,
they say, than two other men could lift. He took the tiller in his hand;
the steady north wind, the Etesian wind, kept blowing in the sails, and
he steered straight southward for the mouths of the Nile.



IV

THE BLOOD-RED SEA

A hard fight it had been and a long, and the Wanderer was weary. He took
the tiller of the ship in his hand, and steered for the South and
for the noonday sun, which was now at his highest in the heavens. But
suddenly the bright light of the sky was darkened and the air was filled
with the rush, and the murmur, and the winnowing of innumerable wings.
It was as if all the birds that have their homes and seek their food in
the great salt marsh of Cayster had risen from the South and had flown
over sea in one hour, for the heaven was darkened with their flight, and
loud with the call of cranes and the whistling cry of the wild ducks.
So dark was the thick mass of flying fowl, that a flight of swans shone
snowy against the black cloud of their wings. At the view of them the
Wanderer caught his bow eagerly into his hand and set an arrow on the
string, and, taking a careful aim at the white wedge of birds, he shot a
wild swan through the breast as it swept high over the mast. Then,
with all the speed of its rush, the wild white swan flashed down like
lightning into the sea behind the ship. The Wanderer watched its fall,
when, lo! the water where the dead swan fell splashed up as red as blood
and all afoam! The long silver wings and snowy plumage floated on the
surface flecked with blood-red stains, and the Wanderer marvelled as he