"Why, is there aught amiss in coming ashore as she did?"
"Hold your peace, I tell you. On my word, it is as well, though, that you have had it out with me here in the meadows. Listen: there is no harm in the drifting hither. What sent her adrift?"
"I have sailed for a month with Danes," I said. "I have met with a man who once set a girl adrift."
As I said that I looked him meaningly in the face, and he grew pale.
"So," he said slowly, "you have heard that tale also. There was a Danish chapman who came to our haven at Mundesley, where I live, and told it there to me. That was a year after the boat was found. I bade him be silent, but there was no need. When he heard that the girl had become what she is, he fled the land. And, mind you, he could not be certain, nor can I."
"Nor could the man who told me. But my Dane is the nephew of that man."
Sighard grasped my arm.
"Speak to him, and bid him hold his tongue if he has heard the tale, else he and you are dead men. Get to him at once."
I thought, indeed, that there was need to do so, though Erling was in nowise talkative. For if, as was pretty certain, the tale of the coming of Quendritha went round the groups of men at the camp fires, he might say that he had heard of one set adrift from his own land.
So instead of going in at once with the king to the pavilion, I ran down to the lines where the horses were picketed, and found Erling on his way to the supper, which was spread under some trees for our servants. I took him aside and walked out into the open with him.