"Father," asked Rolf, "knowest thou who the man is that came upon the ship?"
"I know," answered Hiarandi.
Asdis asked: "Who then is he?"
Hiarandi said: "Saw ye upon the ship, as it lay below us, the faces of any of the men?"
"Aye," answered they both, "for it was as clear as day."
"Saw ye then," asked Hiarandi, "one who stood by the mast, a tall man with a great beard?"
"I saw him," answered Rolf. "He stood and held by a rope and the mast, and I thought he should be the captain; but he gave no commands, nor did any man heed him, for all worked of themselves."
"Yet, as I guess," said Hiarandi, "the captain was he, and he was the man of whom the carline spoke."
"Who is he, then?" asked the boy.
"Listen," said Hiarandi, "and I will tell thee of one in my family of whom I have never yet spoken. There were two of us when I was a lad, brothers; and the other was named Kiartan. He was younger than I by a year, and different in all his ways; yet I have often thought that my father had not enough patience with him. For he sent him to bad companions rather than weaned him from them, and at last he drove him from the house altogether. Then Kiartan took to the sea—he was not bad, remember, but weak perhaps and foolish—took to the sea, and we saw him not for years. Once only he came back, out at elbow, and asked my father for money. Money he got, but gave the promise to ask nothing from the inheritance; and this was handselled before witnesses, my father giving much, the rest to come to me. Then Kiartan went away again, and not until this night have I seen him. But if that was his ship, then he has prospered."