The Pilots of Pomona: A Story of the Orkney Islands

by Robert Leighton

"Come along, Ericson; you had better be the one to divide the treasure for us. We all ken you'll divide it fairly."

The treasure was heaped upon the tombstone, and as I regarded it I foresaw the difficulty of the task before me; for the pieces were obviously of very varied values, and I did not see how I could easily distribute them into four equal shares. But I made the attempt according to the manner that I had seen adopted by the fishermen at Stromness in dividing their fish.

To begin with, there was the sword--apparently the most valuable of all the treasures. Who was to have this? I naturally thought it should go to Hercus, to whom we owed our possession of the wealth, and I remembered that Kinlay already had an equivalent share in the pieces of broken helmet he had appropriated. I handed the sword over to Hercus, therefore. Tom offered no opposition at the time, but he afterwards bartered with Hercus for it, giving him in exchange two of the ingots of silver and the coat of mail which subsequently fell to his share.

The sword and the coat of mail being apportioned to Hercus and Kinlay, I then gave the bronze belt to Rosson, and took for myself some pieces of armour and a fragment of a shield. Then there were twenty-two ingots, or bars of silver, each of about six ounces in weight. Five of these were apportioned to each of us, two being left to be dealt with afterwards.

Next, there were thirteen brooches, such as the Scandinavians--as I learned later on--were accustomed to use for binding their mantles. They were all of similar pattern, and would weigh, perhaps, three ounces each. Of them we had three apiece. There were three massive torques, or rings, something in the form of horseshoes, the opening being left to admit of their being fastened upon the neck, where the ornaments were worn, I believe, by the ancients as symbols of rank or command. These articles were composed of a series of rings interlaced, some of them being embossed with rude but curious designs.

I saw that we could not each of us have one of these, and here I was again in a difficulty; but since the ingots of silver were of about an equal weight, I took one of them myself and gave an ornament to each of my companions. Hercus, however, would not agree to this, and he showed, truly enough, that the ingots were worth no more than their weight in metal; whereas the rings were of much greater value, on account of being curious specimens of ancient art. He therefore asked me to take a few of the coins in order to make a fair division. The remaining coins, of which there was a considerable quantity, were then counted and equally shared amongst us.

We had now left one ingot of silver, one brooch, some odd fragments of silver, and a small black stone which had a metal ring round it; and the sharing of these cost more trouble than all the other articles together. They were all, so far as we could judge, of unequal values. The stone was considered worthless, except for the little band of metal with which it was clasped. The brooch was only about half the weight of the ingot, and it was not counted precious, because already each of us had three like it, while the small pile of silver fragments was not worth half the ingot {[ⁱ]}. I thought I was acting very fairly when I suggested that Hercus should have what remained, because, I said, if it had not been for him we would have had nothing at all.

"'Deed you'll do nothing of the kind," objected Kinlay. "What for should Hercus take all?"

"Well, well," I said, somewhat ruffled, I admit, at Tom's greed, "you needn't be so sulky. Take you and divide the things. You'll not do it any fairer."

But Tom saw a way of sharing the things which suited himself, if it did not quite agree with my own views of fairness. To Willie he gave the brooch, to Robbie he passed the pile of fragments; and now he held the two remaining pieces, the ingot of silver and the little black stone. We awaited with much interest his final decision. With an unpleasant flash of his dark eyes he cast the stone to my end of the rude table, and quietly thrust the bar of silver with his other possessions into his capacious pockets.