e that we might fall in a ring of foes on the deck of the
pirate.

Gerda buckled on those weapons for us. And then Dalfin must end his
song, and it was good to see and hear him, if only he and myself
understood the words. But Heidrek crept up to us all the time, if
we forgot him for the moment under the spell of the wild song.

The clear voice ceased, for the song was ended. A dimness crept
across the decks, and the sail shivered and filled again. Bertric
looked up at the sky and out to windward, and his face changed.

"What is it?" asked Gerda anxiously.

"Running into a fog bank," he said. "Look ahead."

One could not see it. Only it was as if the ring of sea to windward
had of a sudden grown smaller. Heidrek was not a mile astern of us,
and still his ships were in bright sunshine. Even as we watched
them, a grayness fell on them, and then they grew dim.

Then the fog closed in on us, and swallowed us up, and drifted
across the decks so thickly that we could barely see from gunwale
to gunwale, damp, and chilling. Still, the wind did not fail us,
hurrying the fog before it.

"We must hold on until we know if this is but a bank of fog, or if
it is everywhere," Bertric said. "What say you, Malcolm?"

I thought a while, knowing the cold sea fogs of the north pretty
well.

"Heidrek will be in it by this time," I said. "Fog bank or more, I
would about ship and run back past him with the wind. If it is a
bank, we shall go with it, and he must lose us. If it is more, we
can get on our southward course in it shortly, and if he sights us
again, he will have all his work to catch us, for his men will be
tired of rowing."

"What if the fog lifts directly?"

"We shall be little worse off than now--and we shall be heading
down on Heidrek before he knows it."

"Aye," he answered, "with way enough on us to sink him offhand, and
maybe take this ship clear through his. Get to the sheets, you and
Dalfin, and we will chance it."

Bertric luffed, and we hauled the tack amidships. Then he paid off
to the wind, and we slacked off the sheet with the help of a turn
of its fall round the great cleat of the backstay. The wash of the
waves round the bows ceased, and there was only the little hiss of
the water as the sea broke alongside of us. It always seems very
silent for a little while when one puts about for a run after
beating to windward.

"Listen," said Bertric under his breath, "we shall hear Heidrek
directly on the s