’Long, low, and narrow, bearing one mast with a red sail, and rowed by fifteen oars a-side,’ the knight answered.  ’At her bows was a deck under which men might lie, and at her stern another shut off by a painted door from the rowers’ benches.  Here Hugh and I slept, with Witta and the Yellow Man, upon tapestries as soft as wool.  I remember’—­he laughed to himself—­’when first we entered there a loud voice cried, “Out swords!  Out swords!  Kill, kill!” Seeing us start Witta laughed, and showed us it was but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail.  He sat her on his shoulder, and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to kiss her.  Yet she was no more than a silly bird.  But—­ye knew this?’ He looked at their smiling faces.

‘We weren’t laughing at you,’ said Una.  ’That must have been a parrot.  It’s just what Pollies do.’

’So we learned later.  But here is another marvel.  The Yellow Man, whose name was Kitai, had with him a brown box.  In the box was a blue bowl with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as long, maybe, as my spur, but straight.  In this iron, said Witta, abode an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out of his own country that lay three years’ journey southward.  The Evil Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore, look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.’

‘South?’ said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.

’With my own eyes I saw it.  Every day and all day long, though the ship rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South.  Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the unknowable seas.’  Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children.  ’How think ye?  Was it sorcery?’

‘Was it anything like this?’ Dan fished out his old brass pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring.  ’The glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.’

The knight drew a long breath of wonder.  ’Yes, yes!  The Wise Iron shook and swung in just this fashion.  Now it is still.  Now it points to the South.’

‘North,’ said Dan.

‘Nay, South!  There is the South,’ said Sir Richard.  Then they both laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points to the North, the other must point to the South.

‘Te,’ said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue.  ’There can be no sorcery if a child carries it.  Wherefore does it point South—­or North?’

‘Father says that nobody knows,’ said Una.