"It may well be that the fight has gone hardly for Heidrek, else I think that he would have put off to follow the ship before this. After all, it may be that we can sail back to your fjord and tell this tale to your folk, and so make an end of Arnkel and his misdeeds. Now, lady--for as yet we do not know your name--we will rig the forward awning for you, and there you shall sleep. Here is this bed, and if there is aught else--"
"My name is Gerda," she answered, smiling. "I forgot that you could not know it. Yes, I am weary, and what you will do is most kind. See, there is one chest there which I would have with me. It holds the gear that was my grandmother's, and I may surely use it in my need. I had never to ask my grandsire for aught but he would give it me."
We had all ready in very little time, and there we left her, and she smiled at us and thanked us again, and so let fall the awning curtains and was gone. Then we three went aft and sat down and looked at one another. We had a new care thrust on us, and a heavy one.
[Chapter 5]: Vision And Pursuit.
Bertric walked backward and forward, as a seaman ever will, across the deck, whistling softly to himself, and looking eastward.
"Once," he said, as if thinking aloud, "I was foolish enough to buy a bag full of wind from a Finn. He said that it depended on how much I let out what sort of breeze I had. When he was out of my reach, I found that he had not told me from which quarter the wind would come. So I hove the thing overboard. Now I wish I had it. Any wind is better than this doubt of what may come."
"Aye," I said. "We may be blown back into the arms of old Heidrek. What say you to taking one of these boats, or fitting out our own with their oars, and so trying to make the coast? Even Heidrek would pay no heed to a boat."
"We may have to do that yet," answered my friend. "Heidrek is not coming, or he would have sought this ship under oars at once. That Arnkel must have beaten him soundly--is that likely?"
"I think so," I said. "Every warrior would be in his war gear at that funeral, and it would be a full gathering of the king's folk. Now, I wonder how Arnkel explained the making away of the lady to her people."
"One may think of many lies he could tell. Men do not heed what goes on behind them when a fight is on hand. He will say that she fled, or that Heidrek's men took her--as the fight may go. They will search for her, in the first case, and presently think her lost for good."