rd from her little height.

There was stillness in the hall, while the three women stood looking up
at my lord. Then some of the men got up, and frowning, hesitated, and
then said they would go. Six of them. We others sat silent. The women
fell laughing and pointing at us, and the lights flared merrily.

The next morning we watched the ship hauled down the beach and put out.
And when she passed round the trees going by the shore, we lost her
suddenly.

For months we waited--for a year. She did not come back. Did they find
the hall lost beyond the waters? Did my lord marry the maiden? Or were
they drowned or lost?

I an old man write this now in "justification," as my lord said.

THE LAST VOYAGE

The ceiling was broken through in the corner over our heads, and
clean-tongued splinters pointed downward; the big room was smoky from
the roaring fire, and the table was covered with bottles; around sat
some forty men. We were in our armour, except our head-pieces, for we
had ravaged the country round, and had killed or driven away all living
things. All but one; for the old woman of the house stood even now
grinning in the corner. Round the walls were piled plate and beautiful
armour, such as we had never seen before, and there were gold crosses
and gold pots and chains; yet the men grumbled, till at last one threw
his little cup into the fire and strode heavily to the door. He kicked
it and it tumbled outward on one leathern hinge. The rest of us looked
lazily up. A brown expanse of burnt vinelands, and in the distance a
broken-roofed church and the black walls and chimneys of a few cottages
that looked ugly and lonely and pitiful against the blue depth of the
sky. The thought came into the minds of all of us I think, to leave this
brown path that we had trod free of grass, for our ship lay only one
day's march somewhere westward, and the half of our number again cursed
the lots that they had drawn as they waited; but the old woman, who
always grinned, poured yellow wine into our cups and took the old ones
away, and we drank, and it made us courageous, so that we spent the
evening wrestling by the firelight.

It was just before sunrise that I stirred sleepily and raised myself on
my hands and knees. In a moment I heard clank and clash coming from the
darkness all around me, then silence, but my mind saw grey things that
crept in nearing circles. Ay, grey as sleep, around the house. As I woke
my companions shak