xpected somewhat."

Said the Sea-eagle: "Why now do the shipmen tarry and have not made ready
the skiff? Swillers and belly-gods they be; slothful swine that forget
their chieftain."

But even as he spake came four of the shipmen, and without more ado took
him up, bed and all, and bore him down into the waist of the ship,
whereunder lay the skiff with four strong rowers lying on their oars.
These men made no sign to Hallblithe, nor took any heed of him; but he
caught up his spear, and followed them and stood by as they lowered the
old man into the boat. Then he set his foot on the gunwale of the ship
and leapt down lightly into the boat, and none hindered or helped him;
and he stood upright in the boat, a goodly image of battle with the sun
flashing back from his bright helm, his spear in his hand, his white
shield at his back, and thereon the image of the Raven; but if he had
been but a salt-boiling carle of the sea-side none would have heeded him
less.

CHAPTER X: THEY HOLD CONVERSE WITH FOLK OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN

Now the rowers lifted the ash-blades, and fell to rowing towards shore:
and almost with the first of their strokes, the Sea-eagle moaned out:

"Would we were there, oh, would we were there! Cold groweth eld about my
heart. Raven's Son, thou art standing up; tell me if thou canst see what
these folk of the land are doing, and if any others have come thither?"

Said Hallblithe: "There are none others come, but kine and horses are
feeding down the meadows. As to what those four are doing, the women are
putting off their shoon, and girding up their raiment, as if they would
wade the water toward us; and the carle, who was barefoot before, wendeth
straight towards the sea, and there he standeth, for very little are the
waves become."

The old man answered nothing, and did but groan for lack of patience; but
presently when the water was yet waist deep the rowers stayed the skiff,
and two of them slipped over the gunwale into the sea, and between them
all they took up the chieftain on his bed and got him forth from the boat
and went toward the strand with him; and the landsfolk met them where the
water was shallower, and took him from their hands and bore him forth on
to the yellow sand, and laid him down out of reach of the creeping ripple
of the tide. Hallblithe withal slipped lightly out of the boat and waded
the water after them. But the shipmen rowed back again to their ship,
and prese