So astonishing was the spectacle of three lightly-clad men, appearing suddenly on board a craft moored out on the river, that the three boatmen sat immovable, in the attitudes in which they had been sitting at the entry of these strange visitors, without uttering a word.

Superstitious by nature, they doubted whether there was not something supernatural in the appearance of the three strangers.
"If you cry out or make the slightest sound," Fergus said, showing his knife, "you are all dead men.

If you sit quiet and do as we order you, no harm will come to you.

We want clothes.

If you have spare ones you can hand them to us.