"And is this all?"
"I had work enough to get that. He said, No play no pay; and he would give
it me after the isle was taken. But I told him my spirit was a Jewish
spirit, that used to serve Solomon the Wise; and he would not serve me,
much less come over the sea from Normandy, unless he smelt gold; for he
loved it like any Jew."
"And what did you tell him then?"
"That the king must go back to Aldreth again; for only from thence he
would take the isle; for--and that was true enough--I dreamt I saw all the
water of Aldreth full of wolves, clambering over into the island on each
other's backs."
"That means that some of them will be drowned."
"Let them drown. I left him to find out that part of the dream for
himself. Then I told him how he must make another causeway, bigger and
stronger than the last, and a tower on which I could stand and curse the
English. And I promised him to bring a storm right in the faces of the
English, so that they could neither fight nor see."
"But if the storm does not come?"
"It will come. I know the signs of the sky,--who better?--and the weather
will break up in a week. Therefore I told him he must begin his works at
once, before the rain came on; and that we would go and ask the spirit of
the well to tell us the fortunate day for attacking.
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