A Prince of Cornwall / A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex

by Charles W. Whistler

The other men shrank from me, and I went through them easily, and so reached the shoreward gunwale. There I was stayed, for Evan had never ceased to cry to his fellows to stop me, and there was a row of ready swords waiting for me. And there were more men coming down the path, Welshmen as I could see by their arms, and by their white tunics which glimmered in the moonlight. So that was closed to me, and it seemed that here I must fight my last fight.

Then as I could not go over the side I went to the high stern and leapt on it, half hoping that the men on shore might not be quick enough to stay me from a leap thence, but they were there alongside before me. Evan was up now, and cheering on the men on deck to attack me, but not seeming to care to lead them. They gathered together and came aft to me slowly, planning, as it would seem, how best to attack me, for the steering deck on which I was raised me four feet or so above them. The men on shore could not reach me at all unless I got too near the gunwale, when some of them who had spears might easily end me.

Something alongside the ship caught my eyes, and I glanced at it with a thought that here might be fresh foes. But it was only the little boat that belonged to the ship. The wind had caught her, and was drifting her at the length of her painter as if she wanted to cross the cove to its far side. Perhaps the men saw that my eyes were not on them for that moment, for they made a rush from the deck to climb the steering platform.

Then I had a good fight for a few minutes, until I swept them back to their place. Two had won to the deck beside me, and there they stayed. Now I had a hope that the men on shore would come round to the ship and leave the way clear for me, but Evan called to them to bide where they were. He had not faced me yet, and I bade him do so, telling him that this was his affair, and that it was nidring to risk other men's lives to save his own skin. But even that would not bring him on me.

Now the men whom I had seen coming down from the cliffs' top had hurried to see what all the shouting meant, and I saw that they were well-armed warriors and mostly spearsmen. Evan cried to them to come and help, and they ranged up alongside. He told them that I was a Norseman who had gone berserk, and must needs be slain.

"That is easily managed," said the leader. "Get to your bows, men."

I saw half a dozen unslinging them, and I knew that without shield I was done, and in that moment a thought came to me. I suppose that danger sharpens one's wits, for I saw that in the little boat was my last chance. I had not time to draw her to the side, and so I cut her painter, which was fast to a cleat close to me, and as I did so the first arrow missed my head.

Then I shouted and leapt from the high stern straight among the crowd at Evan, felling one of his outlaw comrades as I lit on the deck. But I could not reach him, and in a few seconds I should have been surrounded. So I cleared a way to the seaward side and went overboard, amid a howl from my foes. I thought that I should never stop sinking, for I had forgotten my mail; but I came to the surface close to the ship, and looked for the boat. She was drifting gently away from me, and I knew that I should have all that I could do to reach her before the bowmen got to work again from the ship's deck. Some one threw an axe at me as I swam, which was waste of a good weapon, and I hoped that it was not Thorgils' best. Strange what thoughts come to a man when in a strait.

The water struck icy cold to me, and I felt that I could not stand it long, but I gained on the boat with every stroke, though it was hard work swimming in my mail and with a sword in my hand. I got rid of the blanket that was hampering my left arm, and by that time I was far enough from the ship for my foes to be puzzled by it. The moonlight was bright on the water, but the little waves tossed it so that it must have been hard for them to know which was I and which the floating stuff. Certainly, the first arrows that were shot when the bowmen got a chance at me from the ship or over her were aimed at the blanket, for I heard them strike it. Then one leapt from wave to wave past me.

I won to the boat just in time, for I could not have held on much longer. The cold was numbing me, and if I stopped swimming I must have sunk with the weight of mail. None of our old summer tricks of floating and the like were of any use with that weight on me. The arrows were coming thickly by that time, and I was glad to get to the far side of the boat and rest my hand on the gunwale, while I managed to sheathe my sword. The men could not see plainly where I was, and the arrows pattered on the planks of the boat and hissed into the water still, on the chance of hitting me. So I thought it well to get out of range before I tried to get on board, and so held the gunwale with one hand and paddled on with the other, until the arrows began to fall short, and at last ceased. A Welshman's bow has no long range, so that I had not far to go thus. But all the while I feared most of all to hear the plash of oars that would tell me that they had put off another boat in chase of me.