"How will the tide serve us hereabout?" asked Bertric presently.
"The flood will set in to the eastward in two hours' time," I answered. "It depends on how we lie on the Orkney coasts whether it drifts us to the northward or to the southward. We have been set to the westward all night with the ebb."
"Wind may come with the flood," said he.
And that was the best we could hope for. But I set the steering oar in the sculling rowlock aft, and did what I could in that way. At least, it saved some of the westward drift, if it was of very little use else.
Dalfin curled up in the sun and slept. He had no care for the possible troubles which were before us, knowing naught of the sea; but this calm made the Saxon and myself anxious enough.
"After all," I said, "maybe it will only be a matter of hunger for a day or two."
Bertric smiled, and pointed to the locker under the stern thwart, on which I was sitting.
"I think I told you that you were but a few minutes before me in this matter," he said. "Well, when I heard that Asbiorn would take the boat, I knew my chance had come. So I dropped six of your barley loaves into her as she lay alongside the wharf, and stowed them aft when I went to bale out the rain water that was in her. The men were too much taken up with the plunder to mind what I was about. I think your little water breaker is full also. It is there, and I tried it."
"Why, then, that will carry us far enough," I said. "You are a friend in need in all truth."
"I wrought for myself. I am glad that things have turned out thus in the end. Now do you sleep, if you can. You shall wake when need is."