Only five of Thorkill’s company embarked with their captain:  the poison killed the rest.  The demons hung furiously over them, and cast their poisonous slaver from every side upon the men below them.  But the sailors sheltered themselves with their hides, and cast back the venom that fell upon them.  One man by chance at this point wished to peep out; the poison touched his head, which was taken off his neck as if it had been severed with a sword.  Another put his eyes out of their shelter, and when he brought them back under it they were blinded.  Another thrust forth his hand while unfolding his covering, and, when he withdrew his arm, it was withered by the virulence of the same slaver.  They besought their deities to be kinder to them; vainly, until Thorkill prayed to the god of the universe, and poured forth unto him libations as well as prayers; and thus, presently finding the sky even as before and the elements clear, he made a fair voyage.

And now they seemed to behold another world, and the way towards the life of man.  At last Thorkill landed in Germany, which had then been admitted to Christianity; and among its people he began to learn how to worship God.  His band of men were almost destroyed, because of the dreadful air they had breathed, and he returned to his country accompanied by two men only, who had escaped the worst.  But the corrupt matter which smeared his face so disguised his person and original features that not even his friends knew him.  But when he wiped off the filth, he made himself recognizable by those who saw him, and inspired the king with the greatest eagerness to hear about his quest.  But the detraction of his rivals was not yet silenced; and some pretended that the king would die suddenly if he learnt Thorkill’s tidings.  The king was the more disposed to credit this saying, because he was already credulous by reason of a dream which falsely prophesied the same thing.  Men were therefore hired by the king’s command to slay Thorkill in the night.  But somehow he got wind of it, left his bed unknown to all, and put a heavy log in his place.  By this he baffled the treacherous device of the king, for the hirelings smote only the stock.

On the morrow Thorkill went up to the king as he sat at meat, and said:  “I forgive thy cruelty and pardon thy error, in that thou hast decreed punishment, and not thanks, to him who brings good tidings of his errand.  For thy sake I have devoted my life to all these afflictions, and battered it in all these perils; I hoped that thou wouldst requite my services with much gratitude; and behold!  I have found thee, and thee alone, punish my valour sharpliest.  But I forbear all vengeance, and am satisfied with the shame within thy heart—­if, after all, any shame visits the thankless—­as expiation for this wrongdoing towards me.  I have a right to surmise that thou art worse than all demons in fury, and all beasts in cruelty, if, after escaping the snares of all these monsters, I have failed to be safe from thine.”