ood nought of
what the elder said. So wore the day and still the wind held fair,
though it was light; and the sun set in a sky nigh cloudless, and there
was nowhere any forecast of peril. But when night was come, Hallblithe
lay down on a fair bed, which was dight for him in the poop, and he soon
fell asleep and dreamed not save such dreams as are but made up of bygone
memories, and betoken nought, and are not remembered.

When he awoke, day lay broad on the sea, and the waves were little, the
sky had but few clouds, the sun shone bright, and the air was warm and
sweet-breathed.

He looked aside and saw the old man sitting up in his bed, as ghastly as
a dead man dug up again: his bushy eyebrows were wrinkled over his
bleared old eyes, the long white hair dangled forlorn from his gaunt
head: yet was his face smiling and he looked as happy as the soul within
him could make the half-dead body. He turned now to Hallblithe and said:

"Thou art late awake: hadst thou been waking earlier, the sooner had
thine heart been gladdened. Go forward now, and gaze thy fill and come
and tell me thereof."

"Thou art happy, Grandfather," said Hallblithe, "what good tidings hath
morn brought us?"

"The Land! the Land!" said the Long-hoary; "there are no longer tears in
this old body, else should I be weeping for joy."

Said Hallblithe: "Art thou going to meet some one who shall make thee
glad before thou diest, old man?"

"Some one?" said the elder; "what one? Are they not all gone? burned,
and drowned, and slain and died abed? Some one, young man? Yea,
forsooth some one indeed! Yea, the great warrior of the Wasters of the
Shore; the Sea-eagle who bore the sword and the torch and the terror of
the Ravagers over the coal-blue sea. It is myself, MYSELF that I shall
find on the Land of the Glittering Plain, O young lover!"

Hallblithe looked on him wondering as he raised his wasted arms towards
the bows of the ship pitching down the slope of the sunlit sea, or
climbing up it. Then again the old man fell back on his bed and
muttered: "What fool's work is this! that thou wilt draw me on to talk
loud, and waste my body with lack of patience. I will talk with thee no
more, lest my heart swell and break, and quench the little spark of life
within me."

Then Hallblithe arose to his feet, and stood looking at him, wondering so
much at his words, that for a while he forgat the land which they were
nearing, though he had caught gl