Moreover, how could I tell that some of her longing for home might not be also from pain of separation?  And that was now no happy thought to me.  Well, I must wait and find out all that.  If it was in my power that longing should be stilled, and then I might know the best and worst of all that might lie before me.

Thoughts like these do not grow up all at once as I have set them down.  At this time they seemed to gather from the many times they had passed through my mind, and rank themselves against my words.  So it came to pass that I was silent, and was glad presently that so I had been.

“Look!” said Gerda suddenly, pointing out to the far eastward, “yonder are sails on the skyline.”

Far off they were, but plain enough under the morning sun.  Two white specks on the blue circle’s edge, sails of ships which sailed westward, as if beating to windward in long boards against the northeast breeze.  They might be Norse vessels from Dublin on their way homewards, though it had been more easy for such to wait a slant from the south or west.

“They cannot be the ships which have caused the firing of the beacons,” I said.  “That trouble was to the westward.”

I half turned to look at the hills and their fires, and saw our comrades coming to us.  Dalfin was ahead, and plainly excited.

“Malcolm,” he cried, so soon as he was within hearing, “I cannot hold back if there is fighting in our land.  Will you two take the boat there and set me across to the mainland?”

I suppose that he had talked of this to Bertric as they came, for the Saxon nodded to me.

“It will but take half an hour,” he said.  “Moreover, if we cross we may learn what is amiss.  What says the queen?”

“If the prince must go,” she said, “I do not see how I can stay him.  I can sit and watch you there and back, and cannot feel lonely.  But need he go?”

“Faith,” said Dalfin, laughing, “can a prince of Maghera sit still when the fires are burning yonder to call him?  That would be a shame to him, and a wonder to his folk.  I must go.”

His eyes shone, and it was plain that even had we wished to do so, we could not stay him.  The place of the prince was with his men, and he would return for us.  Gerda smiled at his eagerness, and bade him hasten to return, and so we went to where the boats lay in the sand hills.

The larger had all her gear in her as we left it, and the smaller, which was meant for three only, had but her oars.  We took this latter, as it was easy to get her to the water, and she was all we needed.

“Go and get your arms,” I said to Dalfin.  “We will pull round and meet you at the rock where the fishers landed.”

“Hurry, then,” he said, and went his way to the cells in all haste.

More slowly Gerda followed him, and we pushed off and bent to the oars.  There was little sea, and we went swiftly from the open round the eastern point of the island and into the strait.