a laugh, choosing simple words that
all might understand. Before Ceawlin had time to speak he swung around
upon the listening men, standing tall in the ruddy light, his head
thrown back to shake the hair from his eyes. "Listen, O friends, for it
is a good tale, such as ye know how to love. Five black ships,
dragon-prowed, rode out of the night, upon the black seas, upon the
foam. Long were they, and lean, and swift as the vertragus, the hound
that outspeeds the hart. Winds roared behind them; great birds swooped
through the storm across their way; great waves rushed under them as
they rode with rocking spars. Spray swept across the faces of those who
manned them, as the hair of a woman sweeps across her lover's face;
crashing they reeled through lifting seas, and swam to the crests of
curling billows rimmed with pale fire, and the thunder of their going
outroared the clamoring storm. Know ye the yell of the wind in the
straining cordage, the heave and fall of the plunging deck beneath your
feet? Know ye the sting of brine upon your lips, and the savor of the
salt winds in your lungs, O ye sons of Evor?"

A deep breath went through the circle, as though a breath from the outer
seas had filled men's nostrils. Ceawlin licked his lips as though he had
thought to find them stiff with salt.

"Ay--we know!" he said deeply, his eyes alight. "Hast thou then been
also upon the seas?"

Nicanor laughed low.

"Nay, never I!" he said. "But I see that ye do know."

"Go on!" spoke a voice, impatient, from the circle.

They were his, every man, and he knew it. In his first words he had
struck the chord which answered true in them, these lawless sea-rovers;
they were his to play upon as a musician on his lyre. The sure instinct
of his art taught him to tell of those things which they themselves knew
best, which were nearest to them, to their own lives. The ring held
silent, awaiting his next word, bearded men who leaned upon their spears
and iron swords, and listened. They had eyes for none other than he,
this tall youth with the black hair and the eyes of steel, who stood
before them in his careless pose of triumph, with his red rose thrust
behind his ear; who knew what they knew, felt what they had felt, made
them see what he saw, and held them in the hollow of his hand. Caught up
in his swift imagery, even they forgot their prisoner, who, it seemed,
was further to one side, less in evidence among his guards. By now the
Romans h