I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of his description of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time for confirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising his eyes from the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay before him on the printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my voice that the current might not be broken, and I know that he was not aware of what he was saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with Longfellow. "Charlie," I asked, "when the rowers on the gallies mutinied how did they kill their overseers?" "Tore up the benches and brained 'em. That happened when a heavy sea was running. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank and fell among the rowers. They choked him to death against the side of the ship with their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too dark for the other overseer to see what had happened. When he asked, he was pulled down too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up deck by deck, with the pieces of the broken benches banging behind 'em. How they howled!" "And what happened after that?" "I don't know. The hero went away--red hair and red beard and all. That was after he had captured our galley, I think." The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with his left hand as a man does when interruption jars. "You never told me he was red-headed before, or that he captured your galley," I said, after a discreet interval. Charlie did not raise his eyes. "He was as red as a red bear," said he, abstractedly. "He came from the north; they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers--not slaves, but free men. Afterward--years and years afterward--news came from another ship, or else he came back"-- His lips moved in silence. He was rapturously retasting some poem before him. "Where had he been, then?" I was almost whispering that the sentence might come gentle to whichever section of Charlie's brain was working on my behalf. "To the Beaches--the Long and Wonderful Beaches!" was the reply, after a minute of silence. "To Furdurstrandi?" I asked, tingling from head to foot. "Yes, to Furdurstrandi," he pronounced the word in a new fashion. "And I too saw"----The voice failed. "Do you know what you have said?" I shouted, incautiously. He lifted his eyes, fully roused now, "No!" he snapped. "I wish you'd let a chap go on reading. Hark to this: "'But Othere, the old sea captain, He neither paused nor stirred Till the king listened, and then Once more took up his pen And wrote down every word, "'And to the King of the Saxons In witness of the truth, Raising his noble head, He stretched his brown hand and said, "Behold this walrus tooth."' By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go sailing all over the shop never knowing where they'd fetch the land! Hah!"