“What can be done now?” she asked, speaking to us as to known friends, very bravely.

If she had doubts of us, she hid them.  Perhaps that we owned to being escaped captives explained much to her—­else she had surely wondered that the tattered Dalfin claimed to be a prince.  Yet he was princely, both in look and bearing, as he rose up and made himself known, with a bow which none but a courtier could have compassed.

“Bertric is shipmaster,” I said; “he will answer.”

“The ship is yours, lady, and we can but serve you,” he answered.  “Now, it depends on the wind when it comes with dawn, as no doubt it will, what course we can take, for we are too few to work the ship rightly.  We had thought of trying to make the Norway shore at the nearest point we could reach, and so setting the ship, and the hero who lies in her, in the hands of those who will do him the honour that he needs at the last.”

At that, to our great surprise, she shook her head.

“That you cannot do; at least, you may not go back to the land whence he came.  Hall and town may be in the hands of our worst foe, else I had not been here.”

“We cannot be sure of making your haven in any case.  We should have sought such haven as we might, had we been alone.”

“And you thought nothing of the treasure, which will be surely taken from you?”

“We had not thought of it, lady.  We have been on board the ship but three hours or so.  What thought might have come to us I cannot say.  But it is not ours, and we could not rob the dead.”

He said that quite simply, and as the very truth, which must be to us as a matter of honour.

“Tell me who you are,” she said.  “The prince I know already.  Dalfin, I think it was, an Irish name.”

Dalfin bowed again, well pleased.  Then he took on himself to make us known in turn, as gravely as if in his father’s court.

“This is my host, Malcolm, son of the Norse Jarl of Caithness, who has unfortunately succeeded his brave father after a gallant fight, in which I was honoured in taking part.  This is Bertric the Thane, of Lyme, in England, a shipmaster of long standing.  He joined us when we two escaped from Heidrek, who calls himself the Seafarer, and held us captive after burning out my host and his folk.”

“Heidrek the Seafarer!” she said, with a sharp sigh, looking up in wonder at us.  “When was it that he did this harm to you?”

“It was three days ago,” I answered.  “He fell on us at dawn, and by noon we were at sea with him as captives.  That same night we escaped, thanks to the young chief, Asbiorn.”

“Then he came straightway from your home and fell on mine,” she said gravely.  “Surely the wrath of the Asir will fall on Heidrek ere long, if, indeed, the Asir care aught what a warrior does of wrong.”

“Has he burnt you out also, lady?” asked Dalfin.

“That I doubt,” she answered shortly.  “But it was with his help that I myself was set afloat to be burned.”