When he asked, he was pulled down too and choked,
and the lower deck fought their way up deck by deck, with the pieces of the
broken benches banging behind 'em. How they howled!"
"And what happened after that?"
"I don't know. The hero went away--red hair and red beard and all. That was
after he had captured our galley, I think"
The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with his left
hand as a man does when interruption jars.
"You never told me he was redheaded before, or that he captured your galley,"
I said, after a discreet interval.
Charlie did not raise his eyes.
"He was as red as a red bear," said he, abstractedly. "He came from the north;
they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers--not slaves, but free
men. Afterward--years and years afterward--news came from another ship, or
else he came back"--His lips moved in silence. He was rapturously retasting
some poem before him.
"Where had he been, then?" I was almost whispering that the sentence might
come gentle to whichever section of Charlie's brain was working on my behalf.
"To the Beaches--the Long and Wonderful Beaches!" was the reply, after a
minute of silence.
"To Furdurstrandi?" I asked, tingling from head to foot.
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