With that he fell fervently to uncouth thanksgivings, while the sun came rushing up and dried them all. Hyla and Huber glanced at each other in mute admiration of his eloquence. CHAPTER XII "Through the gray willows danced the fretful gnat, The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree, In sleek and oily coat the water-rat, Breasting the little ripples manfully Made for the wild-duck's nest." They won to land, with the aid of a floating oar. Hyla and Cerdic were for getting back to Icomb and explaining what had befallen them to the fathers, but Huber flatly refused to accompany them. He said it was his duty to go back to Hilgay and say what had become of his comrades, and how they had met their end. "But if you tell Lord Fulke how you have eaten and slept in friendship--for we must rest and eat before we go--with those that did kill his father, what then?" said Cerdic. "Lord Fulke would not dare harm me for that, even were I to tell him. I am too well liked among the men. Natheless, I shall say nothing. I shall say that I clomb on the boat, and won the shore, and so made my way home. Look you to this. Can I give up the only life I know, and my master, and eke my wife to serve the priests, or live hunted and outlaw in the fens with you?" He argued it out with perfect fairness and good sense, and, with a sinking of the heart, they saw that their ways must indeed lie very far apart. Material considerations made the whole thing difficult. They were in an unenviable position, and one of great danger, and their only means of transport was the one boat. "There is only one way," said Cerdic, "and that is this: we must row over the lake to the Priory first, and then leave the boat with Huber to make his own way back over the lake and through the fenways." The man-at-arms crossed himself with fervour. "Not I," he said. "I would not venture again upon that accursed lake for my life. It is cursed. You have heard of the Great Black Hand? It is an evil place, and has taken many of my good comrades. Leave you me here and go your ways. I will try to get back through the fen." "Art no fenman, Huber, and canst scarcely swim. Also, that is the most dangerous part of the fen, the miles between the river and this lake. It's nought but pools, waterways, and bog. You could not go a mile." "Then I will stay here and rot. There is no mortal power that shall make me upon that water more." There was such genuine superstitious terror in his face and voice that they felt it useless to attempt persuasion, and they cast about in their minds for some other solution of the difficulty. It was long in coming, for in truth the problem was very difficult. At last it was solved, poorly enough, but with a certain possibility of safety.