The Pilots of Pomona: A Story of the Orkney IslandsLeighton, Robert
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The Pilots of Pomona: A Story of the Orkney Islands
Leighton, Robert
Orkney (Scotland) -- Fiction
To begin with, there was the sword--apparently the most valuable of
all the treasures. Who was to have this? I naturally thought it
should go to Hercus, to whom we owed our possession of the wealth,
and I remembered that Kinlay already had an equivalent share in the
pieces of broken helmet he had appropriated. I handed the sword
over to Hercus, therefore. Tom offered no opposition at the time,
but he afterwards bartered with Hercus for it, giving him in
exchange two of the ingots of silver and the coat of mail which
subsequently fell to his share.
The sword and the coat of mail being apportioned to Hercus and
Kinlay, I then gave the bronze belt to Rosson, and took for myself
some pieces of armour and a fragment of a shield. Then there were
twenty-two ingots, or bars of silver, each of about six ounces in
weight. Five of these were apportioned to each of us, two being
left to be dealt with afterwards.
Next, there were thirteen brooches, such as the Scandinavians--as I
learned later on--were accustomed to use for binding their mantles.
They were all of similar pattern, and would weigh, perhaps, three
ounces each. Of them we had three apiece. There were three massive
torques, or rings, something in the form of horseshoes, the opening
being left to admit of their being fastened upon the neck, where
the ornaments were worn, I believe, by the ancients as symbols of
rank or command. These articles were composed of a series of rings
interlaced, some of them being embossed with rude but curious
designs.
I saw that we could not each of us have one of these, and here I
was again in a difficulty; but since the ingots of silver were of
about an equal weight, I took one of them myself and gave an
ornament to each of my companions. Hercus, however, would not agree
to this, and he showed, truly enough, that the ingots were worth no
more than their weight in metal; whereas the rings were of much
greater value, on account of being curious specimens of ancient
art. He therefore asked me to take a few of the coins in order to
make a fair division. The remaining coins, of which there was a
considerable quantity, were then counted and equally shared amongst
us.
We had now left one ingot of silver, one brooch, some odd fragments
of silver, and a small black stone which had a metal ring round it;
and the sharing of these cost more trouble than all the other
articles together. They were all, so far as we could judge, of
unequal values. The stone was considered worthless, except for the
little band of metal with which it was clasped. The brooch was only
about half the weight of the ingot, and it was not counted
precious, because already each of us had three like it, while the
small pile of silver fragments was not worth half the ingot
{i}. I thought I was acting very fairly when I suggested that
Hercus should have what remained, because, I said, if it had not
been for him we would have had nothing at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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