at it was the wizard's familiar
spirit. But the wind caught the bird's long wings and drove it from
the boat, and swiftly wheeling it must needs make for us, speeding
down the wind with widespread, still pinions.

Then cried aloud that same terrified man:

"It is a sending, and we are done for!" thinking that, as Finns
will, the wizard they deemed him had made his spells light on us in
this visible form. But my father held out his hand, whistling a
falconer's call, and the great bird flew to him, and perched on his
wrist, looking bravely at us with its bright eyes as though sure of
friendship.

"See!" said my father loudly; "this is a trained bird, and no evil
sending; here are the jesses yet on its feet."

And Kenulf and most of the men laughed, asking the superstitious
man if the ship sank deeper, or seas ran higher for its coming.

"Hold you the bird," said my father to me; "see! the boatman makes
for us."

I took the beautiful hawk gladly, for I had never seen its like
before, and loved nothing better when ashore than falconry, and as
I did so I saw that its master had changed the course of his boat
and was heading straight for us. Now, too, I could make out that
what we had thought a sail was but the floor boarding of the boat
reared up against a thwart, and that the man was managing her with
a long oar out astern.

The great hawk's sharp talons were like steel on my ungloved wrist,
piercing through the woollen sleeve of my jerkin, but I heeded them
not, so taken up was I with watching this man who steered so well
and boldly in so poorly fitted a craft. And the boat was, for all
that, most beautiful, and built on such lines as no Saxon boat had.
Well we know those wondrous lines now, for they were those of the
longships of the vikings.

Now the men forward began to growl as the boat came on to us, and
when my father, seeing that the man would seek safety with us, bade
those on the fore deck stand by with a line to heave to him as he
came, no man stirred, and they looked foolishly at one another.

Then my father called sharply to Kenulf by name, giving the same
order, and the old man answered back:

"Bethink you, Thane; it is ill saving a man from the sea to be foe
to you hereafter. Let him take his chance."

Thereat my father's brow grew dark, for he hated these evil old
sayings that come from heathen days, and he cried aloud:

"That is not the way of a Christian or a good seaman! Let me come
forwa