If she had doubts of us, she hid them. Perhaps that we owned to being escaped captives explained much to her--else she had surely wondered that the tattered Dalfin claimed to be a prince. Yet he was princely, both in look and bearing, as he rose up and made himself known, with a bow which none but a courtier could have compassed.
"Bertric is shipmaster," I said; "he will answer."
"The ship is yours, lady, and we can but serve you," he answered. "Now, it depends on the wind when it comes with dawn, as no doubt it will, what course we can take, for we are too few to work the ship rightly. We had thought of trying to make the Norway shore at the nearest point we could reach, and so setting the ship, and the hero who lies in her, in the hands of those who will do him the honour that he needs at the last."
At that, to our great surprise, she shook her head.
"That you cannot do; at least, you may not go back to the land whence he came. Hall and town may be in the hands of our worst foe, else I had not been here."
"We cannot be sure of making your haven in any case. We should have sought such haven as we might, had we been alone."
"And you thought nothing of the treasure, which will be surely taken from you?"
"We had not thought of it, lady. We have been on board the ship but three hours or so. What thought might have come to us I cannot say. But it is not ours, and we could not rob the dead."
He said that quite simply, and as the very truth, which must be to us as a matter of honour.
"Tell me who you are," she said. "The prince I know already. Dalfin, I think it was, an Irish name."