the air was full of stinging insects, which at first troubled me much, though afterwards I grew hardened to them.  In short, everything was changed, and I was indeed in a new world that was not told of in Europe, but what world?  What world?  At least the sea joined it to the old, for beneath me was still the Blanche, which timber by timber I had seen built up upon the shores of Thames from oaks cut in my own woods.

As soon as I was strong enough, I went over the ship, or what was left of her.  It was a marvel that she had floated for so long, since her hull was shattered.  Indeed, I do not think she could have done so, save for the fine wool that was packed into the lower part of her, which wool seemed to have swollen when it grew wet and to have kept the water out.  For the rest she was but a hulk, since both her masts were gone, and much of the deck with them.  Still she had kept afloat and driving into this creek, had beached herself upon the mud as though it were the harbour that she sought.

How had we lived through such a journey?  The answer seemed to be, after we were too weak to find or take food, by means of the drug that Kari cherished in his skin bag, and water of which there was plenty left at hand in barrels, since the Blanche had been provisioned for a long voyage to Italy and farther.  At least we had lived for weeks, and weeks, being still young and very strong, and not having been called upon to suffer great cold, since it would appear that although the gale continued after the first few days of our flight before it, the weather had turned warm.

During this time of my recovery, every morning Kari would go ashore, which he did by means of planks set upon the mud, since we were within a few feet of the bank of the creek into which a streamlet ran.  Later he would return, bringing with him fish and wildfowl, and corn of a sort that I did not know, for its grains were a dozen times the size of wheat, flat-sided, and if ripe, of a yellow colour, which he said he had purchased from those who dwelt upon the land.  On this good food I feasted, washing it down with ale and wine from the ship’s stores; indeed never before did I eat so much, not even when I was a boy.

At length, one morning Kari made me put on my armour, the same which I had taken from the French knight, and fled in from London, that he had burnished till it shone like silver, and seat myself in a chair upon what remained of the poop of the ship.  When I asked him why, he answered in order that he might show me to the inhabitants of that land.  In this chair he bade me sit and wait, holding the shield upon my arm and the bare sword in my right hand.

As I had come to know that Kari never did anything without a reason and remembered that I was in a strange country where, lacking him, I should not have lived or could continue to do so, I fell into his humour.  Moreover, I promised that I would remain still and neither speak, nor smile, nor rise from my chair unless he bade me.  So there I sat glittering in the hot sunshine which burned me through the armour.