Thora is not a common one in Orkney, and seeing it on
that strange old tombstone naturally made me think of the Thora
whom I knew--Tom Kinlay's sister.

"Tom, did you ever notice the name on this grave? It's some woman
buried here named Thora."

He turned and read the inscription.

"Ay, I've seen it before. It's some woman that was found drowned at
the foot of the Black Craigs, years ago. I dinna ken who she was. I
think she was in a shipwreck."

"Oh! Then it was no relation of yours?"

"No. That is, I dinna think it. But I have heard that Thora was
named after her."

I asked him to tell me about the wreck; but just then Willie Hercus
interrupted, saying:

"Come along, Ericson; you had better be the one to divide the
treasure for us. We all ken you'll divide it fairly."

The treasure was heaped upon the tombstone, and as I regarded it I
foresaw the difficulty of the task before me; for the pieces were
obviously of very varied values, and I did not see how I could
easily distribute them into four equal shares. But I made the
attempt according to the manner that I had seen adopted by the
fishermen at Stromness in dividing their fish.

To begin with, there was the sword--apparently the most valuable of
all the treasures. Who was to have this? I naturally thought it
should go to Hercus, to whom we owed our possession of the wealth,
and I remembered that Kinlay already had an equivalent share in the
pieces of broken helmet he had appropriated. I handed the sword
over to Hercus, therefore. Tom offered no opposition at the time,
but he afterwards bartered with Hercus for it, giving him in
exchange two of the ingots of silver and the coat of mail which
subsequently fell to his share.

The sword and the coat of mail being apportioned to Hercus and
Kinlay, I then gave the bronze belt to Rosson, and took for myself
some pieces of armour and a fragment of a shield. Then there were
twenty-two ingots, or bars of silver, each of about six ounces in
weight. Five of these were apportioned to each of us, two being
left to be dealt with afterwards.

Next, there were thirteen brooches, such as the Scandinavians--as I
learned later on--were accustomed to use for binding their mantles.
They were all of similar pattern, and would weigh, perhaps, three
ounces each. Of them we had three apiece. There were three massive
torques, or rings, something in the form of horseshoes, the opening
being left to admit of their being fastene