n amid the huts, and there stood
and looked round, while Phelim and Fergus deliberated for a time.
It seemed that the pigs had one empty hut, and the fowls another.
The largest was the chapel, and so there was not one vacant. I
think that they each wished for the honour of turning out for us.

"Father Phelim," I said at last, for Bertric waxed impatient, "let
one good brother leave his cell for that of another, leaving it
free for the queen, and then we can shift for ourselves. We do not
at all mind sleeping in the open, for so we have fared for the last
week and more."

But they would not have that, and in the end Phelim himself led
Gerda with much pride to his own cell and handed it over to her,
while another brother left his cell to us three, it being a large
one, which, indeed, is not saying much for the rest. We were likely
to be warm enough in it; but the cells were clean and dry, each
with a bed of heather and a stone table and stool, and some little
store of rough crockery and the like household things. There were
blankets, too, and rugs for hanging across the doors, which seemed
in some abundance. Afterwards, I found that they were washed ashore
from wrecks at different times.

Then we went back to the shore in all haste. I had doubts as to
whether Gerda would care to be left alone in this strange place,
but she laughed, and said that there was naught to fear. The two
old brothers had gone their way to their own cells, and would not
come forth again till vesper time, as Phelim told us. She had the
little village, if one may call it so, to herself, therefore, till
we returned. But Phelim set his crook against the hut wall as he
went.

"The pigs need a stick at times," he said; "it may be handy."

The tide had ebbed far when we reached the place of the wreck
again, and had bared a long, black reef, which, with never an
opening in it, reached as far as we could see along the shore. It
was only the chance of the high spring tide, driven yet higher than
its wont by the wind on the shore, which had suffered us to clear
it. It was that which we touched slightly as we came in among the
first breakers. We had had a narrow escape.

In an hour we had all that was worth taking ashore saved. The
chests of arms, and those of the bales which the sea had not
reached, and the chest of silver, were all on the beach, and we got
the larger of the two boats over the side, and ran her up into
safety, with her fittings. And