Had I not seen him, yon man would have been surely lost; for I think he cannot see the breakers from his boat," and again he signed to the boatman.
Then from the little craft rose a great, long-winged hawk that cried and hovered over it for a little, as if loth to leave it; and one man said, shrinking and pale, that it was the wizard's familiar spirit.

But the wind caught the bird's long wings and drove it from the boat, and swiftly wheeling it must needs make for us, speeding down the wind with widespread, still pinions.
Then cried aloud that same terrified man: "It is a sending, and we are done for!" thinking that, as Finns will, the wizard they deemed him had made his spells light on us in this visible form.

But my father held out his hand, whistling a falconer's call, and the great bird flew to him, and perched on his wrist, looking bravely at us with its bright eyes as though sure of friendship.
"See!" said my father loudly; "this is a trained bird, and no evil sending; here are the jesses yet on its feet." And Kenulf and most of the men laughed, asking the superstitious man if the ship sank deeper, or seas ran higher for its coming.
"Hold you the bird," said my father to me; "see! the boatman makes for us." I took the beautiful hawk gladly, for I had never seen its like before, and loved nothing better when ashore than falconry, and as I did so I saw that its master had changed the course of his boat and was heading straight for us.

Now, too, I could make out that what we had thought a sail was but the floor boarding of the boat reared up against a thwart, and that the man was managing her with a long oar out astern.
The great hawk's sharp talons were like steel on my ungloved wrist, piercing through the woollen sleeve of my jerkin, but I heeded them not, so taken up was I with watching this man who steered so well and boldly in so poorly fitted a craft.

And the boat was, for all that, most beautiful, and built on such lines as no Saxon boat had.
Well we know those wondrous lines now, for they were those of the longships of the vikings.
Now the men forward began to growl as the boat came on to us, and when my father, seeing that the man would seek safety with us, bade those on the fore deck stand by with a line to heave to him as he came, no man stirred, and they looked foolishly at one another.
Then my father called sharply to Kenulf by name, giving the same order, and the old man answered back: "Bethink you, Thane; it is ill saving a man from the sea to be foe to you hereafter.