So, not wishing to seem ungracious, I followed them into the chapel, which was stone built after the same manner as the cells, but with a ridge roof instead of the rounded top, and much larger, being about fifteen feet long and ten wide.  Over the door was a cross of white stones set in the wall, and at the eastern end was a cross also, and an altar, on which were candles of wax, at which I wondered, seeing them in this place.  Round the walls ran a stone slab as bench, but I was the only one who used it.  The others knelt, facing eastward, and I, at a sign from Bertric, sat by the door, wondering what I should see and hear.

There was enough for me to wonder at.  I heard them pray, and I heard them sing, and whether of prayer or song the words were good to listen to.  I heard them pray for the safety of men at sea in the gale, and for men who fought with the Danes ashore.  They prayed that the hands of the Danes who slew their brethren in the churches round the coast wantonly might be stayed from these doings; but they did not pray for the destruction of these terrible foes.  They asked that they might be forgiven for the wrong they did to harmless men.  And I heard them read from a book whose leaves, as the reader turned them, I saw were bright with gold and colours, words that I cannot set down—­words of uttermost peace in the midst of strife.  I had never heard or thought the like.  I did not know that it could be in the minds of men so to speak and write.  I thought that I would ask Phelim more concerning it at some time if I had the chance.

The brethren rose up with still faces and happy, and the vespers were over.  We went out into the wind again, and across to the cell they had given us, and there they gave us a supper of barley bread and milk, setting aside some for Gerda in a beautiful silver bowl, which Phelim said had come from the shore after a wreck long ago.

Now, we three had some thought that one of us had better watch through the night, if only for Gerda’s comfort.  But Phelim heard us speak thereof, and laughed.

“My sons,” he said, “there is naught to watch against in all this little island, save only the ghostly foe, against whom your arms were of no avail.  Nay, do you sleep in peace.  All the night long we watch in turns in the chapel, and will wake you, if by some strange chance there is need.”

“What do you watch against then, father?” I asked, somewhat idly.  “Wolves round your folds?”

“Aye,” he answered; “the wolf of all wolves.”

“Ah, the wolf will come from the mainland, betimes, I suppose.”

“Most of all we fear him thence,” Phelim answered, with a quaint smile.  “Nay, my son, it is no earthly wolf we watch against.  Hereafter you may learn, or the prince will tell you even now, if you will.  Rest in peace.”

He lifted his hand and blessed us, even as he had done when he met us on the shore, and left us.  They had brought fresh heather for our bedding while we ate, and blankets, and though the light still lingered in the west, we did not wait for darkness.  We slept, as shipwrecked men will sleep, when at last others watch for them.