"The Northmans are right," put in Robin; "such frantic folks are as dangerous to their friends as to their enemies. If that berserker had remained among us in the _holker_, he would have strangled or drowned us all!" "After which he would have flung the vessel over his head like a wooden shoe. He could have done it. I saw him flinging around beams and rocks that must have surely weighed three times as much as any man," added Large-Ears. "What an amount of strength all wasted! How he would have scattered about death and desolation in the abbey of St. Denis, where he thought he was fighting. After all, it is a pity that he is dead and gone." "He is not dead--weigh anchor, my champions! With two strokes of the oars we can reach the isle, and presently you will see Lodbrog return to himself as if awakening from a dream." "By the horns of the devil!" exclaimed Simon. "Out of fear that he may take to dreaming again and harpoon me, I prefer to stay on the vessel with my friend Robin;" and Large-Ears never once took his eyes off the berserker who continued motionless only a hundred feet from the shore and in plain sight of his companions. "The Northmans may go alone to the assistance of the maniac, if they so desire," observed Robin as the _holker_ approached the shore. "It will be a sweet sensation for Lodbrog to recognize the faces of folks from his native land, when he regains consciousness, will it not?" "It sometimes happens that fires, thought to be extinct, suddenly flame up," Large-Ears rejoined sagely. The vessel touched land, and Gaëlo and the Northmans approached the colossus, not, however, without caution. One of the pirates took off his casque, filled it half-full with water, threw into it a handful of sand that he picked up from the shore and shook up the mixture, while his companions vainly sought to raise Lodbrog into a sitting posture. The body was rigid like a bar of iron. They found it impossible to extract from his clenched fist a stone that he still held as firmly as in a vise between his fingers. His face, surrounded by the borders of his casque, was livid and motionless, his jaws were set, his lips were covered with froth, his eyes fixed, dilated, glassy. The Northman, dipping out of his casque the sand moistened with cold water, threw it by handfuls upon the prostrate giant's face. "Be careful!" called out Gaëlo. "You will blind him with the moist sand." "No, no!" confidently answered the pirate, redoubling his sandy douches. "It is especially when the fine gravel enters the eye that the good effect is produced."