The man next to me leans back suddenly just as my bow twangs; arrows strike into the bulwarks.
Fierce faces and bent bows send their sound of shouting and twanging at us over the close side of the enemies’ ship. We thrust with our oars that slip along the timbers; the arrows sing and streak past, their long feathers grey like storks.
Then the ship by us turns off into the fog with a dash of oars that sends the white spray flashing for a moment; it is a shadowy form in the mist; a tall brown thing disappears beside it; we are alone on the smooth water with the ship we have come to help.
The hillside is sprinkled with flowers, the setting sun draws our attention from them. “Come,” says Lord Erik to my lord, “let us go in.” They walk slowly over the darkening blossoms.
“Ever since you called out to me through the fog,” says Lord Erik, “and came on with me and became my guest, I have trusted you with all that I care, or think, or am, and you have never before told me of this.”
My lord smiled rather sadly at the handsome, eager, young face, where the emotion of disappointment lay, like all emotions on those expressive features, bare.
“We do not always speak so easily of what we like,” he answered.
“Oh, it is like an old sail you speak of her—why do you not care?” And the beardless mouth went down. “Does she not like you?” glancing at my lord’s strong limbs.
“Perhaps; girls do not usually love old men,” my lord answered, looking kindly, amusedly, at the boy.
“You old! You are not old! I think of you as something with me, you——”