Gradually he dozed off. The seagulls came nearer, the crabs crawled up on to the edges of the raft, and the lobworms busily raised their piles all round. So passed an hour. But what is it that causes the crabs to sidle away, and the gulls to get up on circling wings, screaming the while?
"Wake up, Corman, wake up, Ædric, and see what your pursuers are doing," the wild birds seemed to cry.
Weary of doing nothing, the idea had occurred to Berchthune to make a movable kind of platform of planks, by which two men could approach the raft. By laying down one set of boards and then standing on them, they were able to lay another set ahead, then getting on these, they were able to pull up the others, and slide them past and place them ahead again, and so they were able to make laborious but sure way up to their prey. In this way they had already advanced about fifty yards, and were getting more adroit in moving the boards.
Heavily Corman was sleeping, and Ædric was far away in dreamland. Nearer and nearer the boards were being pushed; not without much noise and mirth from those in the boat, however. Several times the two adventurous ones had, in the confidence of their skill, gone too much to the side of their treacherous platform, with the result that they had slipped into the fathomless mud, and had to crawl ignominiously back upon their fickle plank, blacker and humbler men. Each of these checks to their pride had evoked shouts of laughter from their comrades and showers of abuse from Berchthune, who was fretting at the delay.
Ædric was dreaming blissfully, and Corman still snored.
Nearer and nearer the men approached, when a shout from their comrades urged them to more activity. The other boat had been seen returning from the Selsea shore. It ran on the mud at the nearest point to the raft, and a man was seen to get out and walk over the slippery surface towards Corman and Ædric.
"Why, he's got boards on his feet!" said the begrimed and weary South Saxon, as he squatted on his precarious plank to look at the strange spectacle, disgusted at the mean advantage of the other man.
Quite safely the man slithered his way over the mud, carrying four flat boards in his hands. He had already gone nearly half the distance, and this in about five minutes; while the enterprising South Saxons had taken nearly an hour to get over an equal space.
"Get on with ye, sluggards, or they will escape yet!" shouted Berchthune, stamping with rage at the idea of his game getting away, after all the hours of waiting on the mud, and the certainty of its falling into his hands at last, on which he had consolingly counted. The two South Saxons now realised that they must make the most desperate exertions if they hoped to get to the raft before the other man. They tugged at their boards—splash they went, into the mud ahead; quickly they got upon them—splash came the last ones they had trodden on out of the mud behind; they toiled at them to put them into their places, then jumped upon them, and once more heaved at their last resting-place. They had no time to look up, splash—slosh—heated work; grimy, filthy, slimy toil—and all the time the crew shouted to them, cheering them on, and encouraging them to fresh exertions. Brother Corman was well avenged for the trouble they had given him in the morning. The men were a great deal nearer the raft than the other man was; but he was going on steadily, and well. And in spite of all the South Saxons could do, the boards would stick in the mud, and their labour was terrific. Their plight was piteous: the perspiration rained off their foreheads, and formed little lanes of white down their muddy faces. And all the time Berchthune yelled at them, and the crew hied them on. And now the men were not more than ten yards distant, while the other man was about the same. The excitement on board the boat became intense, for their men, going as they were in a line from them, seemed to be much nearer than the other man, whose whole distance was visible.
"Make a jump for it!" roared Berchthune. "By Woden's beard, I'll have ye flayed alive if ye don't beat that 'nithing' there."