ckling his frock, he packed it as he had seen me do, bade me
put it on my head, and so stepped out into the water, holding forth his
arm to put about my neck. I was for teaching him how to lay it on my
shoulder, and was bidding him keep still as a plank of wood, but he
snarled--

"I have sailed on a boat of flesh before to-day."

To do him justice, he kept still as a log of wood, and so, yielding
partly to the stream, I landed him somewhat further down than the place
where my own clothes were lying. To them he walked, and very quietly
picking up my whinger and my raiment that he gathered under his arm, he
concealed himself in a thick bush, albeit it was leafless, where no man
could have been aware of him. This amazed me not a little, for modesty
did not seem any part of his nature.

"Now," says he, "fetch over my arbalest. Lying where I am you have no
advantage to shoot me, as, nom de Dieu! I would have shot you had you not
obeyed. And hark ye, by the way, unwind the arbalest before you cross;
it is ever well to be on the safe side. And be sure you wet not the
string." He pushed his face through the bush, and held in his mouth my
naked whinger, that shone between his shining eyes.

Now again I say it, I have thought over this matter many a time, and have
even laughed aloud and bitterly, when I was alone, at the figure of me
shivering there, on a cold February day, and at my helpless estate. For
a naked man is no match for a man with a whinger, and he was sitting on
my clothes. So this friar, unworthy as he was of his holy calling, had
me at an avail on every side, nor do I yet see what I could do but obey
him, as I did. And when I landed from this fifth voyage, he laughed and
gave me his blessing, and, what I needed more, some fiery spirits from a
water-gourd, in which Father Thomas carried no water.

"Well done, my son," he said, "and now we are comrades. My life was not
over safe on yonder side, seeing that the 'manants' hate me, and respect
not my hood, and two are better company than one, where we are going."

This encounter was the beginning of many evils, and often now the picture
shines upon my eyes, and I see the grey water, and hear the cold wind
whistle in the dry reeds of the river-bank whereon we sat.

The man was my master, Heaven help me! as surely as Sathanas was his. And
though, at last, I slipped his clutches, as you shall hear (more readily
than, I trow, he will scape his lord in the