“Then we must hide somewhere,” she said, looking round her as if to see what place might be.

“Aye, we must hide.  There will be fifteen men, or more, in the boat.  Malcolm and I cannot stay their landing.”

Gerda caught her breath suddenly.  “What of the hermits?” she said.

“We waste time,” said I.  “Come and let us tell them.  They may have some hiding place.”

Then we went swiftly to the cells.  Once we looked back to the strait, from the little rise behind which the cells were sheltered, and saw the boat still working against the tide along the far shore.  Heidrek had certainly not heard that the wreck was on the island itself.  Most likely it was thought that we had made for the shelter of the strait, and had gone ashore in trying to reach it.  Unless the ship which we had seen knew the coast well, her crew could hardly have told that an island was here.

There were no hermits to be seen, for they were either in their cells, or at their tasks about the place.  So I went to the first cell and looked in, and finding it empty, went to the next.  Fergus sat there, writing in some beautiful book which he was busied with.  One never found a brother idle.

“Father,” I said, “I must disturb you.  There is danger at hand, I fear.”

“Ah,” he answered, setting down his pen, and rising hastily.  “The Danes at last.  Well, we have long expected them to come to us, as to our brethren elsewhere.  But what shall the poor queen do?”

“Is there no place where you can hide her?” I said.

“None,” he answered gloomily.  “Tell me more.”

I told him, and he shook his head.

“Men in the narrow waters, and men in the open,” he muttered.  “Hemmed in on every side.”

“Danes in the open sea?” I said, with a new fear on me.  The end might be nearer than we deemed it.

“Aye, two ships sailing this way.”

They were those which we had seen and forgotten.  I ran out, and while Fergus went to Bertric, climbed the little hill beyond the village, and looked seaward.  The ships were six miles away, and heading due west, having edged somewhat farther from the shore than when we first sighted them.  They were not coming hither.

“There need be no fear of those ships, father,” I said.  “They are making a passage past us—­bound elsewhere at all events.”

“Then,” he said at once, “there lies your boat on the shore of the open sea.  Make away to the main land eastward while there is time, and take to the hills inland.  You are not likely to be followed thither.  We will give you some token which the poor folk of the shore will know.”

Now, while the hermit had been speaking, I was translating for the other two, as was my way by this time.

“Father,” cried Gerda, and I spoke her words as she said them, “will you not fly also?”

He shook his head with a sad smile.  Neither he nor any one of his brethren would leave the place.