“I had work enough to get that. He said, No play no pay; and he would give it me after the isle was taken. But I told him my spirit was a Jewish spirit, that used to serve Solomon the Wise; and he would not serve me, much less come over the sea from Normandy, unless he smelt gold; for he loved it like any Jew.”
“And what did you tell him then?”
“That the king must go back to Aldreth again; for only from thence he would take the isle; for—and that was true enough—I dreamt I saw all the water of Aldreth full of wolves, clambering over into the island on each other’s backs.”
“That means that some of them will be drowned.”
“Let them drown. I left him to find out that part of the dream for himself. Then I told him how he must make another causeway, bigger and stronger than the last, and a tower on which I could stand and curse the English. And I promised him to bring a storm right in the faces of the English, so that they could neither fight nor see.”
“But if the storm does not come?”
“It will come. I know the signs of the sky,—who better?—and the weather will break up in a week. Therefore I told him he must begin his works at once, before the rain came on; and that we would go and ask the spirit of the well to tell us the fortunate day for attacking.”
“That is my business,” said the other; “and my spirit likes the smell of gold as well as yours. Little you would have got from me, if you had not given me half the chain.”
Then the two rose.
“Let us see whether the English hog is asleep.”