`` Blame me not , '' cried Witta behind us , `` I must abide by my ship . '' We three had no time to blame or praise . We stooped to the gold and threw it back over our shoulders , one hand on our swords and one eye on the tree , which nigh overhung us . ' I know not how the Devils leaped down , or how the fight began . I heard Hugh cry : `` Out ! out ! '' as though he were at Santlache again ; I saw Thorkild 's steel cap smitten off his head by a great hairy hand , and I felt an arrow from the ship whistle past my ear . They say that till Witta took his sword to the rowers he could not bring his ship inshore ; and each one of the four archers said afterwards that he alone had pierced the Devil that fought me . I do not know . I went to it in my mail-shirt , which saved my skin . With long-sword and belt-dagger I fought for the life against a Devil whose very feet were hands , and who whirled me back and forth like a dead branch . He had me by the waist , my arms to my side , when an arrow from the ship pierced him between the shoulders , and he loosened grip . I passed my sword twice through him , and he crutched himself away between his long arms , coughing and moaning . Next , as I remember , I saw Thorkild of Borkum , bare-headed and smiling , leaping up and down before a Devil that leaped and gnashed his teeth . Then Hugh passed , his sword shifted to his left hand , and I wondered why I had not known that Hugh was a left-handed man ; and thereafter I remembered nothing till I felt spray on my face , and we were in sunshine on the open sea . That was twenty days after . ' ` What had happened ? Did Hugh die ? ` the children asked . ` Never was such a fight fought by christened man , ' said Sir Richard .
` An arrow from the ship had saved me from my XXXXX , and Thorkild of Borkum had given back before his Devil , till the bowmen on the ship could shoot it all full of arrows from near by ; but Hugh 's Devil was cunning , and had kept behind trees , where no arrow could reach .
Borkum Devil Hugh Richard Santlache Witta archers days left mail-shirt