But they would not have that, and in the end Phelim himself led Gerda with much pride to his own cell and handed it over to her, while another brother left his cell to us three, it being a large one, which, indeed, is not saying much for the rest.  We were likely to be warm enough in it; but the cells were clean and dry, each with a bed of heather and a stone table and stool, and some little store of rough crockery and the like household things.  There were blankets, too, and rugs for hanging across the doors, which seemed in some abundance.  Afterwards, I found that they were washed ashore from wrecks at different times.

Then we went back to the shore in all haste.  I had doubts as to whether Gerda would care to be left alone in this strange place, but she laughed, and said that there was naught to fear.  The two old brothers had gone their way to their own cells, and would not come forth again till vesper time, as Phelim told us.  She had the little village, if one may call it so, to herself, therefore, till we returned.  But Phelim set his crook against the hut wall as he went.

“The pigs need a stick at times,” he said; “it may be handy.”

The tide had ebbed far when we reached the place of the wreck again, and had bared a long, black reef, which, with never an opening in it, reached as far as we could see along the shore.  It was only the chance of the high spring tide, driven yet higher than its wont by the wind on the shore, which had suffered us to clear it.  It was that which we touched slightly as we came in among the first breakers.  We had had a narrow escape.

In an hour we had all that was worth taking ashore saved.  The chests of arms, and those of the bales which the sea had not reached, and the chest of silver, were all on the beach, and we got the larger of the two boats over the side, and ran her up into safety, with her fittings.  And then, for there was yet time, Dalfin would have us save the wonderful carved wagon which was on the deck unhurt, and that, too, we took ashore, and with it some of the casks of food stores which had been so lavishly stored for that strange voyage.  We should not burden the good brothers with this to help feed us.

For the sea was coming in more heavily still as it gathered weight with the long gale, which was still blowing hard.  It was more than likely that the ship would go to pieces in the night as the tide rose again.  Now and then the rain squalls came up and drenched us, and passed; but the brothers cared as little for them as did we, and enjoyed the unusual work more.  It was a wonder to them to see their young prince working as hard as themselves as we carried the heavy things up the beach.

“It is a matter which I have learned while on my travels,” he said, when Fergus said somewhat of the sort to him gently.  “I have seen these two friends, who are nobles in their own lands, work as hard at oar and rope’s end as they would at fighting.  Moreover, it is well to do things for myself now and then—­as, for instance, swimming.”