For the mountains hove up from the sea very fast now.  Some current had us in its grip, setting us shoreward swiftly.  Soon we could see the lower hills along the coast, with sheer, black cliffs, and a fringe of climbing foam at their feet, which was disquieting enough as we headed straight for them.  We forgot the other ship in that sight, as we looked in vain for some gap in the long wall which stretched across our course.  Only in one place, right ahead, the breakers seemed nearer, and as if there might be shelving shore on which they ran, rather than shattering cliffs on which they beat.  And presently we knew that between us and the shore lay an island, low and long, rising to a green hill toward the mainland, but seeming to end to the seaward in a beach which might have less dangers for us than the foot of the cliffs beyond.  So far as we could make out from the deck, the strait between this island and the mainland might be two miles wide, or a little less.

“If only we could get under the lee of that island we were safe,” said Bertric to me.  “It would be calm enough to anchor.”

“We can but try it,” I answered.

And with that we luffed a little, getting the island on our port bow, but it was of no use.  The unhandy canvas set us to leeward, and, moreover, the water gained quickly as the strained upper planking was hove down with the new list of the ship.  I went to the open space amidships whence we baled, and watched for a few minutes, and saw that we could do nothing but run, unless the other tack would serve us.

That we tried, but now we were too far from the eastern end of the island, and it was hopeless to try to escape from the breakers.

“Stem on it must be, and take the chances,” said my comrade.  “It does seem as if the water were deep up to the beach, and we may not fare so badly.  Well, there is one good point about these gifts which Gerda has given us, and that is that we shall have withal to buy hospitality.  There are folk on the island.”

“I saw a wisp of smoke a while ago,” I said; “but I took it that it was on the mainland.  There is no sign of a house.”

“That may lie in some hollow out of the wind,” he said.  “I am sure of its being here.”

Then I said that if we were to get on shore safely, which by the look of the beach as we lifted on the waves seemed possible, it might be better that we were armed.

“Aye, and if not, and we are to be drowned, it were better,” he said grimly.  “One would die as a warrior, anywise.”

Now, all this while Dalfin sat with Gerda under the shelter of the boats forward, having stayed there to watch the water in the hold after we had tried to weather the island.  Now and again Dalfin rose up and slipped into the bilge and baled fiercely, while Gerda watched the shore and the green hills, which looked so steady above the tumbling seas, wistfully.

I went to them and told them that we must needs face the end of the voyage in an hour or so, and that we would arm ourselves in case the shore folk gave trouble.