" said he. "Come with us and be poor no more. Thy teeth are far
apart, which is a sure sign thou wilt travel and grow rich."

'"What if we will not come?" said Hugh.

'"Swim to England or France," said Witta. "We are midway between the
two. Unless ye choose to drown yourselves no hair of your head will be
harmed here aboard. We think ye bring us luck, and I myself know the
runes on that Sword are good." He turned and bade them hoist sail.

'Hereafter all made way for us as we walked about the ship, and the ship
was full of wonders.'

'What was she like?' said Dan.

'Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by
fifteen oars a-side,' the knight answered. 'At her bows was a deck under
which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a painted door
from the rowers' benches. Here Hugh and I slept, with Witta and the
Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool. I remember'--he laughed to
himself--'when first we entered there a loud voice cried, "Out swords!
Out swords! Kill, kill!" Seeing us start Witta laughed, and showed us it
was but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail. He sat her on his
shoulder, and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to
kiss her. Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He
looked at their smiling faces.

'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot.
It's just what Pollies do.'

'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose
name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl
with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine
thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as
long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode
an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out
of his own country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil
Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore,
look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.'

'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.

'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship
rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind
Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South.
Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the
unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the childre