," he said, "we are homeless wanderers, but we would not have
you think yourself altogether alone so long as we can plan for you.
Mayhap we can do no more, but, at least, we shall see. I cannot
think that all hope is lost. See, we have the ship, and it is high
summer. Not one of us can be worse off than we have been of late,
and we may win to comfort once more."

Thereat she looked at the three of us, and rose up and stretched
her hands toward us, as in greeting.

"I will trust you," she said. "I will think of you as friends and
brothers in trouble, and in enmity to Heidrek the evildoer. It must
be that you three have wrought loyally together through the long
storm, and you can never be aught but friends thereafter, for you
have tried one another. Let me be as the fourth of you without
favour."

"Lady," said Dalfin, "I have sisters at home, and they were wont to
share all the sport of myself and my brothers, even as you say, as
of our number without favour. But always the sisters had the
favoured place, because we willed it, and should be unhappy if it
were otherwise. There were some favours which they held as their
unspoken right.

"Is not that so in your land, Bertric the Thane, and in yours,
friend Malcolm the Jarl?"

Truly this Dalfin knew how to set things in the right way, for even
I, who had no sisters, was not left out of that answer. So we both
said that he was right, and she knew well what we meant, and was
content. Moreover, by naming our titles once again, though they
were barren enough here in all truth, he told her that it was on
our honour to help her.

"I am more than content," she said softly. "I am no longer
friendless. Now I will tell you what befell me, and then you shall
plan what you may, not in anywise thinking too much of me, but for
all four of us."

She set the blue cloak round her as if chill, and was silent,
thinking for a few minutes. Bertric and I leant on the gunwale
close by, and Dalfin set himself on the deck near us. And all the
while she spoke, Bertric was glancing eastward across the still
water for the first sign of the breeze we longed for. I know now
that on him was a dread lest it should bring with it the brown
sails of Heidrek's two ships; but he did not show it. It was likely
that men would have watched for the smoke of the burning ship, and
that when they did not see it, would put out to search, guessing
what had happened.

"Yonder lies my grandfather," the lady sa