CHAPTER VI.
HOW HEREWARD WAS WRECKED UPON THE FLANDERS SHORE.
Hereward had drunk his share at Sigtryg's wedding. He had helped toharry the lands of O'Brodar till (as King Ranald had threatened) therewas not a sucking-pig left in Ivark, and the poor folk died of famine,as they did about every seven years; he had burst (says the chronicler)through the Irish camp with a chosen band of Berserkers, slain O'Brodarin his tent, brought off his war-horn as a trophy, and cut his way backto the Danish army,--a feat in which the two Siwards were grievouslywounded; and had in all things shown himself a daring and craftycaptain, as careless of his own life as of other folks'.
Then a great home-sickness had seized him. He would go back and seethe old house, and the cattle-pastures, and the meres and fens of hisboyhood. He would see his widowed mother. Perhaps her heart was softenedto him by now, as his was toward her; and if not, he could show her thathe could do without her; that others thought him a fine fellow if shedid not. Hereward knew that he had won honor and glory for himself;that his name was in the mouths of all warriors and sea-rovers round thecoasts as the most likely young champion of the time, able to rival, ifhe had the opportunity, the prowess of Harold Hardraade himself. Yes,he would go and see his mother: he would be kind if she was kind; if shewere not, he would boast and swagger, as he was but too apt to do. Thathe should go back at the risk of his life; that any one who found him onEnglish ground might kill him; and that many would certainly try tokill him, he knew very well. But that only gave special zest to theadventure.
Martin Lightfoot heard this news with joy.
"I have no more to do here," said he. "I have searched and asked far andwide for the man I want, and he is not on the Irish shores. Some say heis gone to the Orkneys, some to Denmark. Never mind; I shall find himbefore I die."
"And for whom art looking?"
"For one Thord Gunlaugsson, my father."
"And what wantest with him?"
"To put this through his brain." And he showed his axe.
"Thy father's brain?"
"Look you, lord. A man owes his father naught, and his mother all. Atleast so hold I. 'Man that is of woman born,' say all the world; andthey say right. Now, if any man hang up that mother by hands and feet,and flog her to death, is not he that is of that mother born bound torevenge her upon any man, and all the more if that man had first hiswicked will of that poor mother? Considering that last, lord, I do notknow but what I am bound to avenge my mother's shame upon the man, evenif he had never killed her. No, lord, you need not try to talk this outof my head. It has been there nigh twenty years; and I say it over tomyself every night before I sleep, lest I should forget the one thingwhich I must do before I die. Find him I will, and find him I shall, ifthere be justice in heaven above."
So Hereward asked Ranald for ships, and got at once two good vessels aspayment for his doughty deeds.
One he christened the _Garpike_, from her narrow build and long beak,and the other the _Otter_, because, he said, whatever she grappled shewould never let go till she heard the bones crack. They were excellent,new "snekrs," nearly eighty feet long each; with double banks for twelveoars a side in the waist, which was open, save a fighting gangway alongthe sides; with high poop and forecastle decks; and with one large sailapiece, embroidered by Sigtryg's Princess and the other ladies with ahuge white bear, which Hereward had chosen as his ensign.
As for men, there were fifty fellows as desperate as Hereward himself,to take service with him for that or any other quest. So they ballastedtheir ships with great pebbles, stowed under the thwarts, to be usedas ammunition in case of boarding; and over them the barrels of ale andpork and meal, well covered with tarpaulins. They stowed in the cabins,fore and aft, their weapons,--swords, spears, axes, bows, chests ofarrow-heads, leather bags of bowstrings, mail-shirts, and helmets, andfine clothes for holidays and fighting days. They hung their shields,after the old fashion, out-board along the gunwale, and a right gay showthey made; and so rowed out of Waterford harbor amid the tears of theladies and the cheers of the men.
But, as it befell, the voyage did not prosper. Hereward found hisvessels under-manned, and had to sail northward for fresh hands. He gotnone in Dublin, for they were all gone to the Welsh marches to help EarlAlfgar and King Griffin. So he went on through the Hebrides, intending,of course, to plunder as he went: but there he got but little booty, andlost several men. So he went on again to the Orkneys, to try for freshhands from the Norse Earl Hereof; but there befell a fresh mishap. Theywere followed by a whale, which they made sure was a witch-whale, andboded more ill luck; and accordingly they were struck by a storm in thePentland Frith, and the poor _Garpike_ went on shore on Hoy, and wasleft there forever and a day, her crew being hardly saved, and verylittle of her cargo.
However, the _Otter_ was now not only manned, but over manned; andHereward had to leave a dozen stout fellows in Kirkwall, and sailsouthward again, singing cheerily to his men,--
"Lightly the long-snake Leaps after tempests, Gayly the sun-gleam Glows after rain In labor and daring Lies luck for all mortals, Foul winds and foul witch-wives Fray women alone."
But their mishaps were not over yet. They were hardly out of StronsayFrith when they saw the witch-whale again, following them up, rollingand spouting and breaching in most uncanny wise. Some said that they sawa gray woman on his back; and they knew--possibly from the look of thesky, but certainly from the whale's behavior--that there was more heavyweather yet coming from the northward.
From that day forward the whale never left them, nor the wild weatherneither. They were beaten out of all reckoning. Once they thought theysaw low land to the eastward, but what or where who could tell? and asfor making it, the wind, which had blown hard from northeast, backedagainst the sun and blew from west; from which, as well as fromthe witch-whale, they expected another gale from north and round tonortheast.
The men grew sulky and fearful. Some were for trying to run the witchdown and break her back, as did Frithiof in like case, when hunted by awhale with two hags upon his back,--an excellent recipe in such cases,but somewhat difficult in a heavy sea. Others said that there was adoomed man on board, and proposed to cast lots till they found him out,and cast him into the sea, as a sacrifice to Aegir the wave-god. ButHereward scouted that as unmanly and cowardly, and sang,--
"With blood of my bold ones, With bale of my comrades, Thinks Aegir, brine-thirsty, His throat he can slake? Though salt spray, shrill-sounding, Sweep in swan's-flights above us, True heroes, troth-plighted, Together we'll die."
At last, after many days, their strength was all but worn out. Theyhad long since given over rowing, and contented themselves with runningunder a close-reefed canvas whithersoever the storm should choose. Atnight a sea broke over them, and would have swamped the _Otter_, had shenot been the best of sea-boats. But she only rolled the lee shields intothe water and out again, shook herself, and went on. Nevertheless, therewere three men on the poop when the sea came in, who were not there whenit went out.
Wet and wild dawned that morning, showing naught but gray sea and grayair. Then sang Hereward,--
"Cheerly, my sea-cocks Crow for the day-dawn. Weary and wet are we, Water beladen. Wetter our comrades, Whelmed by the witch-whale. Us Aegir granted Grudging, to Gondul, Doomed to die dry-shod, Daring the foe."
Whereat the hearts of the men were much cheered.
All of a sudden, as is the wont of gales at dawn, the clouds rose, toreup into ribbons, and with a fierce black shower or two, blew clean away;disclosing a bright blue sky, a green rolling sea, and, a few miles offto leeward, a pale yellow line, seen only as they topped a wave, butseen only too well. To keep the ship off shore was impossible; and asthey drifted nearer and nearer, the line of sand-hills rose, uglier andmore formidable, through the gray spray of the surf.
"We shall die on shore, but not dry-shod," said Martin. "Do any of youknights of the tar-brush know whether we
are going to be drowned inChristian waters? I should like a mass or two for my soul, and shall diethe happier within sight of a church-tower."
"One Dune is as like another as one pea; we may be anywhere between theTexel and Cap Gris Nez, but I think nearer the latter than the former."
"So much the worse for us," said another. "If we had gone ashoreamong those Frieslanders, we should have been only knocked on the headoutright; but if we fall among the Frenchmen, we shall be clapt inprison strong, and tortured till we find ransom."
"I don't see that," said Martin. "We can all be drowned if we like, Isuppose?"
"Drowned we need not be, if we be men," said the old sailing-master toHereward. "The tide is full high, and that gives us one chance for ourlives. Keep her head straight, and row like fiends when we are oncein the surf, and then beach her up high and dry, and take what befallsafter."
And what was likely to befall was ugly enough. Then, as centuries after,all wrecks and wrecked men were public prey; shipwrecked mariners wereliable to be sold as slaves; and the petty counts of the French andFlemish shores were but too likely to extract ransom by prison andtorture, as Guy Earl of Penthieu would have done (so at least WilliamDuke of Normandy hinted) by Harold Godwinsson, had not William, for hisown politic ends, begged the release of the shipwrecked earl.
Already they had been seen from the beach. The country folk, who wereprowling about the shore after the waifs of the storm, deserted "jetsomand lagend," and crowded to meet the richer prize which was coming in"flotsom," to become "jetsom" in its turn.
"Axe-men and bow-men, put on your harness, and be ready; but neitherstrike nor shoot till I give the word. We must land peaceably if we can;if not, we will die fighting."
So said Hereward, and took the rudder into his own hand. "Now then,"as she rushed into the breakers, "pull together, rowers all, and with awill."
The men yelled, and sprang from the thwarts as they tugged at the oars.The sea boiled past them, surged into the waist, blinded them withspray. She grazed the sand once, twice, thrice, leaping forwardgallantly each time; and then, pressed by a huge wave, drove highand dry upon the beach, as the oars snapt right and left, and the mentumbled over each other in heaps.
The peasants swarmed down like flies to a carcass; but they recoiled asthere rose over the forecastle bulwarks, not the broad hats of peacefulbuscarles, but peaked helmets, round red shields, and glittering axes.They drew back, and one or two arrows flew from the crowd into the ship.But at Hereward's command no arrows were shot in answer.
"Bale her out quietly; and let us show these fellows that we are notafraid of them. That is the best chance of peace."
At this moment a mounted party came down between the sandhills; it mightbe, some twenty strong. Before them rode a boy on a jennet, and by hima clerk, as he seemed, upon a mule. They stopped to talk with thepeasants, and then to consult among themselves. Suddenly the boy turnedfrom his party; and galloping down the shore, while the clerk calledafter him in vain, reined up his horse, fetlock deep in water, withinten yards of the ship's bows.
"Yield yourselves!" he shouted, in French, as he brandished a huntingspear. "Yield yourselves, or die!"
Hereward looked at him smiling, as he sat there, keeping the head ofhis frightened horse toward the ship with hand and heel, his long locksstreaming in the wind, his face full of courage and command, and ofhonesty and sweetness withal; and thought that he had never seen so faira lad.
"And who art thou, thou pretty, bold boy?" asked Hereward, in French.
"I," said he, haughtily enough, as resenting Hereward's familiar "thou,""am Arnulf, grandson and heir of Baldwin, Marquis of Flanders, and lordof this land. And to his grace I call on you to surrender yourselves."
Hereward looked, not only with interest, but respect, upon the grandsonof one of the most famous and prosperous of northern potentates, thedescendant of the mighty Charlemagne himself. He turned and told the menwho the boy was.
"It would be a good trick," quoth one, "to catch that young whelp, andkeep him as a hostage."
"Here is what will have him on board before he can turn," said another,as he made a running noose in a rope.
"Quiet, men! Am I master in this ship or you?"
Hereward saluted the lad courteously. "Verily the blood of Baldwin ofthe Iron Arm has not degenerated. I am happy to behold so noble a son ofso noble a race."
"And who are you, who speak French so well, and yet by your dress areneither French nor Fleming?"
"I am Harold Naemansson, the Viking; and these my men. I am here,sailing peaceably for England; as for yielding,--mine yield to noliving man, but die as we are, weapon in hand. I have heard of yourgrandfather, that he is a just man and a bountiful; therefore take thismessage to him, young sir. If he have wars toward, I and my men willfight for him with all our might, and earn hospitality and ransom withour only treasure, which is our swords. But if he be at peace, then lethim bid us go in peace, for we are Vikings, and must fight, or rot anddie."
"You are Vikings?" cried the boy, pressing his horse into the foam soeagerly, that the men, mistaking his intent, had to be represt again byHereward. "You are Vikings! Then come on shore, and welcome. Youshall be my friends. You shall be my brothers. I will answer to mygrandfather. I have longed to see Vikings. I long to be a Vikingmyself."
"By the hammer of Thor," cried the old master, "and thou wouldst make abonny one, my lad."
Hereward hesitated, delighted with the boy, but by no means sure of hispower to protect them.
But the boy rode back to his companions, who had by this time riddencautiously down to the sea, and talked and gesticulated eagerly.
Then the clerk rode down and talked with Hereward.
"Are you Christians?" shouted he, before he would adventure himself nearthe ship.
"Christians we are, Sir Clerk, and dare do no harm to a man of God."
The Clerk rode nearer; his handsome palfrey, furred cloak, rich glovesand boots, moreover his air of command, showed that he was no commonman.
"I," said he, "am the Abbot of St. Bertin of Sithiu, and tutor of yonderprince. I can bring down, at a word, against you, the Chatelain of St.Omer, with all his knights, besides knights and men-at-arms of my own.But I am a man of peace, and not of war, and would have no blood shed ifI can help it."
"Then make peace," said Hereward. "Your lord may kill us if he will, orhave us for his guests if he will. If he does the first, we shall kill,each of us, a few of his men before we die; if the latter, we shallkill a few of his foes. If you be a man of God, you will counsel himaccordingly."
"Alas! alas!" said the Abbot, with a shudder, "that, ever since Adam'sfall, sinful man should talk of nothing but slaying and being slain; notknowing that his soul is slain already by sin, and that a worse deathawaits him hereafter than that death of the body of which he makes solight!"
"A very good sermon, my Lord Abbot, to listen to next Sunday morning:but we are hungry and wet and desperate just now; and if you do notsettle this matter for us, our blood will be on your head,--and maybeyour own likewise."
The Abbot rode out of the water faster than he had ridden in, and afresh consultation ensued, after which the boy, with a warning gestureto his companions, turned and galloped away through the sand-hills.
"He is gone to his grandfather himself, I verily believe," quothHereward.
They waited for some two hours, unmolested; and, true to their policyof seeming recklessness, shifted and dried themselves as well asthey could, ate what provisions were unspoilt by the salt water, and,broaching the last barrel of ale, drank healths to each other and to theFlemings on shore.
At last down rode, with the boy, a noble-looking man, and behindhim more knights and men-at-arms. He announced himself as Manasses,Chatelain of St. Omer, and repeated the demand to surrender.
"There is no need for it," said Hereward. "We are already that youngprince's guests. He has said that we shall be his friends and brothers.He has said that he will answer to his grandfa
ther, the great Marquis,whom I and mine shall be proud to serve. I claim the word of adescendant of Charlemagne."
"And you shall have it!" cried the boy. "Chatelain! Abbot! these men aremine. They shall come with me, and lodge in St. Bertin."
"Heaven forefend!" murmured the Abbot.
"They will be safe, at least, within your ramparts," whispered theChatelain.
"And they shall tell me about the sea. Have I not told you how I longfor Vikings; how I will have Vikings of my own, and sail the seas withthem, like my Uncle Robert, and go to Spain and fight the Moors, andto Constantinople and marry the Kaiser's daughter? Come," he cried toHereward, "come on shore, and he that touches you or your ship, touchesme!"
"Sir Chatelain and my Lord Abbot," said Hereward, "you see that, Vikingthough I be, I am no barbarous heathen, but a French-speaking gentleman,like yourselves. It had been easy for me, had I not been a man of honor,to have cast a rope, as my sailors would have had me do, over that youngboy's fair head, and haled him on board, to answer for my life withhis own. But I loved him, and trusted him, as I would an angel outof heaven; and I trust him still. To him, and him only, will I yieldmyself, on condition that I and my men shall keep all our armsand treasure, and enter his service, to fight his foes, and hisgrandfather's, wheresoever they will, by land or sea."
"Fair sir," said the Abbot, "pirate though you call yourself, you speakso courtly and clerkly, that I, too, am inclined to trust you; and if myyoung lord will have it so, into St. Bertin I will receive you, till ourlord, the Marquis, shall give orders about you and yours."
So promises were given all round; and Hereward explained the matter tothe men, without whose advice (for they were all as free as himself) hecould not act.
"Needs must," grunted they, as they packed up each his little valuables.
Then Hereward sheathed his sword, and leaping from the bow, came up tothe boy.
"Put your hands between his, fair sir," said the Chatelain.
"That is not the manner of Vikings."
And he took the boy's right hand, and grasped it in the plain Englishfashion.
"There is the hand of an honest man. Come down, men, and take this younglord's hand, and serve him in the wars as I will do."
One, by one the men came down; and each took Arnulf's hand, and shook ittill the lad's face grew red. But none of them bowed, or made obeisance.They looked the boy full in the face, and as they stepped back, staredround upon the ring of armed men with a smile and something of aswagger.
"These are they who bow to no man, and call no man master," whisperedthe Abbot.
And so they were: and so are their descendants of Scotland andNorthumbria, unto this very day.
The boy sprang from his horse, and walked among them and round them indelight. He admired and handled their long-handled double axes; theirshort sea-bows of horn and deer-sinew; their red Danish jerkins; theirblue sea-cloaks, fastened on the shoulder with rich brooches; and thegold and silver bracelets on their wrists. He wondered at their longshaggy beards, and still more at the blue patterns with which theEnglish among them, Hereward especially, were tattooed on throat and armand knee.
"Yes, you are Vikings,--just such as my Uncle Robert tells me of."
Hereward knew well the exploits of Robert le Frison in Spain and Greece."I trust that your noble uncle," he asked, "is well? He was one of uspoor sea-cocks, and sailed the swan's path gallantly, till he becamea mighty prince. Here is a man here who was with your noble uncle inByzant."
And he thrust forward the old master.
The boy's delight knew no bounds. He should tell him all about that inSt. Bertin.
Then he rode back to the ship, and round and round her (for the tideby that time had left her high and dry), and wondered at her longsnake-like lines, and carven stem and stern.
"Tell me about this ship. Let me go on board of her. I have never seena ship inland at Mons there; and even here there are only heavy uglybusses, and little fishing-boats. No. You must be all hungry and tired.We will go to St. Bertin at once, and you shall be feasted royally.Hearken, villains!" shouted he to the peasants. "This ship belongs tothe fair sir here,--my guest and friend; and if any man dares to stealfrom her a stave or a nail, I will have his thief's hand cut off."
"The ship, fair lord," said Hereward, "is yours, not mine. You shouldbuild twenty more after her pattern, and man them with such lads asthese, and then go down to
'Miklagard and Spanialand, That lie so far on the lee, O!'
as did your noble uncle before you."
And so they marched inland, after the boy had dismounted one of his men,and put Hereward on the horse.
"You gentlemen of the sea can ride as well as sail," said the chatelain,as he remarked with some surprise Hereward's perfect seat and hand.
"We should soon learn to fly likewise," laughed Hereward, "if there wereany booty to be picked up in the clouds there overhead"; and he rode onby Arnulf's side, as the lad questioned him about the sea, and nothingelse.
"Ah, my boy," said Hereward at last, "look there, and let those beVikings who must."
And he pointed to the rich pastures, broken by strips of corn-land andsnug farms, which stretched between the sea and the great forest ofFlanders.
"What do you mean?"
But Hereward was silent. It was so like his own native fens. For amoment there came over him the longing for a home. To settle down insuch a fair fat land, and call good acres his own; and marry and begetstalwart sons, to till the old estate when he could till no more.Might not that be a better life--at least a happier one--than restless,homeless, aimless adventure? And now, just as he had had a hope ofpeace,--a hope of seeing his own land, his own folk, perhaps of makingpeace with his mother and his king,--the very waves would not let himrest, but sped him forth, a storm-tossed waif, to begin life anew,fighting he cared not whom or why, in a strange land.
So he was silent and sad withal.
"What does he mean?" asked the boy of the Abbot.
"He seems a wise man: let him answer for himself."
The boy asked once more.
"Lad! lad!" said Hereward, waking as from a dream. "If you be heir tosuch a fair land as that, thank God for it, and pray to Him that you mayrule it justly, and keep it in peace, as they say your grandfather andyour father do; and leave glory and fame and the Vikings' bloody tradeto those who have neither father nor mother, wife nor land, but livelike the wolf of the wood, from one meal to the next."
"I thank you for those words, Sir Harold," said the good Abbot, whilethe boy went on abashed, and Hereward himself was startled at his ownsaying, and rode silent till they crossed the drawbridge of St.Bertin, and entered that ancient fortress, so strong that it was thehiding-place in war time for all the treasures of the country, and sosacred withal that no woman, dead or alive, was allowed to defile it byher presence; so that the wife of Baldwin the Bold, ancestor of Arnulf,wishing to lie by her husband, had to remove his corpse from St. Bertinto the Abbey of Blandigni, where the Counts of Flanders lay in glory formany a generation.
The pirates entered, not without gloomy distrust, the gates of thatconsecrated fortress; while the monks in their turn were (and with somereason) considerably frightened when they were asked to entertain asguests forty Norse rovers. Loudly did the elder among them bewail(in Latin, lest their guests should understand too much) the presentweakness of their monastery, where St. Bertin was left to defend himselfand his monks all alone against the wicked world outside. Far differenthad been their case some hundred and seventy years before. Then St.Valeri and St. Riquier of Ponthieu, transported thither from their ownresting-places in France for fear of the invading Northmen, had joinedtheir suffrages and merits to those of St. Bertin, with such successthat the abbey had never been defiled by the foot of the heathen. But,alas! the saints, that is their bodies, after a while became homesick;and St. Valeri appearing in a dream to Hugh Capet, bade him bring themback to France in spite of Arnulf, Count of those parts, who wished mucht
o retain so valuable an addition to his household gods.
But in vain. Hugh Capet was a man who took few denials. With knights andmen-at-arms he came, and Count Arnulf had to send home the holy corpseswith all humility, and leave St. Bertin all alone.
Whereon St. Valeri appeared in a dream to Hugh Capet, and said untohim, "Because thou hast zealously done what I commanded, thou andthy successors shall reign in the kingdom of France to everlastinggenerations." [Footnote: "Histoire des Comtes de Flandre," par E. leGlay. E. gestis SS. Richarii et Walerici.]
However, there was no refusing the grandson and heir of Count Baldwin;and the hearts of the monks were comforted by hearing that Hereward wasa good Christian, and that most of his crew had been at least baptized.The Abbot therefore took courage, and admitted them into the hospice,with solemn warnings as to the doom which they might expect if they tookthe value of a horse-nail from the patrimony of the blessed saint. Washe less powerful or less careful of his own honor than St. Lieven ofHolthem, who, not more than fifty years before, had struck stone-blindfour soldiers of the Emperor Henry's, who had dared, after warning, toplunder the altar? [Footnote: Ibid.] Let them remember, too, the fate oftheir own forefathers, the heathens of the North, and the check which,one hundred and seventy years before, they had received under those verywalls. They had exterminated the people of Walcheren; they had takenprisoner Count Regnier; they had burnt Ghent, Bruges, and St. Omeritself, close by; they had left naught between the Scheldt and theSomme, save stark corpses and blackened ruins. What could withstand themtill they dared to lift audacious hands against the heavenly lordwho sleeps there in Sithiu? Then they poured down in vain over theHeilig-Veld, innumerable as the locusts. Poor monks, strong in theprotection of the holy Bertin, sallied out and smote them hip and thigh,singing their psalms the while. The ditches of the fortress were filledwith unbaptized corpses; the piles of vine-twigs which they lighted toburn down the gates turned their flames into the Norsemen's faces at thebidding of St. Bertin; and they fled from that temporal fire to descendinto that which is eternal, while the gates of the pit were too narrowfor the multitude of their miscreant souls. [Footnote: This gallant featwas performed in the A.D. 891.]
So the Norsemen heard, and feared; and only cast longing eyes at thegold and tapestries of the altars, when they went in to mass.
For the good Abbot, gaining courage still further, had pointed out toHereward and his men that it had been surely by the merits and suffragesof the blessed St. Bertin that they had escaped a watery grave.
Hereward and his men, for their part, were not inclined to deny thetheory. That they had miraculously escaped, from the accident of thetide being high, they knew full well; and that St. Bertin should havedone them the service was probable enough. He, of course, was lord andmaster in his own country, and very probably a few miles out to sealikewise.
So Hereward assured the Abbot that he had no mind to eat St. Bertin'sbread, or accept his favors, without paying honestly for them; and aftermass he took from his shoulders a handsome silk cloak (the only one hehad), with a great Scotch Cairngorm brooch, and bade them buckle it onthe shoulders of the great image of St. Bertin.
At which St. Bertin was so pleased (being, like many saints, maleand female, somewhat proud after their death of the finery which theydespised during life), that he appeared that night to a certain monk,and told him that if Hereward would continue duly to honor him, theblessed St. Bertin, and his monks at that place, he would, in his turn,insure him victory in all his battles by land and sea.
After which Hereward stayed quietly in the abbey certain days; and youngArnulf, in spite of all remonstrances from the Abbot, would never leavehis side till he had heard from him and from his men as much of theiradventures as they thought it prudent to relate.