o. Then the gale blew up suddenly.
I could have stemmed the tide, as often before; but wind and tide
both were my masters then.

"That was three days and two nights ago. Never thought I to see
another sunset, for by midday of that first day I broke an oar, and
knew that home I could never win; so I made shift with the floor
boards, as you saw, for want of canvas. After that there is little
to tell, for it was ever wave after wave, and gray flying clouds
ever over me, and at night no rest, but watching white wave crests
coming after me through the dark."

"Some of us thought that you were a Finn, at least," said my father
as the Dane paused.

"Not once or twice only on this voyage have I wished myself a Finn,
or at least that I had a Finn's powers," said Lodbrok, laughing;
"but there has been no magic about this business save watchfulness,
and my sons' good handicraft."

Then I asked the jarl how he called his sons, with a little honest
envy in my heart that I could never hope to equal their skill in
this matter of boat building, wherein I had been wont to take some
pride of myself.

"Three sons have I in Jutland, Wulfric, my friend, and they, when
they hear my story, will hold you dear to them. Ingvar is the eldest,
Hubba, the next, and the third, Halfden, is three-and-twenty, and so
about your own age, as I take it, as he is also about your equal in
build and strength. Yet I would sooner see a ship of mine steered by
you than by him, for he is not your equal in that matter."

Now that praise pleased me well, as it did also my father. For we
hold the Danes as first of all peoples in the knowledge of sea
craft; and we had seen that this man was a master therein. But
though at this time I thought of naught but the words of praise,
hereafter I was to remember the words that Jarl Lodbrok spoke of
the way in which these sons of his would hold me when the tale was
told them.

At last we hailed the shore through the creeping dusk, and the
shore lines were thrown out. Then were we alongside our staithe
{iii}, and Lodbrok the Dane had come to Reedham.

Now it may seem but a little thing that a seafarer should be driven
to a strange coast, and be tended there in friendly wise by those
who saved him from the breakers, for such is a common hap on our
island shores. Yet, from this day forward, all my life of the time
yet before me was to be moulded by what came of that cast of line
to one in peril. Aye, and there are tho