"Aye," she said at last, with a smile; "this ship was provisioned for a long voyage--for the longest of all, indeed. It seems that for part of the way we have to be her crew. Well, then, we may take what we will of her stores, and do no wrong. The great cauldron, too, holds but part of the funeral feast, and that was mine. Aye, fetch it. There are other things also which may be found, and you can take of them."
But we had no need to search further, for what we had found last night was more than enough. We brought the cauldron aft, and some of the oatcake; and as we ate, first grew and darkened a long blue line which crossed the sea to the eastward, and then came stray airs which lifted the loose folds of the sail uselessly.
Bertric and I went forward and got out two of the ship's long oars, and pulled her head round to the southward. The water dimpled alongside of us and the sail filled as the breeze came. We laid in the oars and went aft to the helm; and so in a few minutes the ship had gathered way, and was heeling a little to the wind, and the foam gathered round her bows and slid along her side aft as she headed southward with the wind on her beam.
"Now, Lady Gerda," said Bertric, "we are under way once more, and the question is, Whither? How far are we from the Norway coast?"
"I cannot tell," she answered. "It was a little before noon, however, when the ship was set afloat, as I have told you."
"We overhauled her at sunset," he said thoughtfully. "At that time she was not doing more than four knots. Maybe we are fifty miles from shore, for she may have done better than that, though I doubt it, seeing how wildly she sailed. Now we can hardly beat back there, for we are too few to work the sail."
"It is as well," she answered sadly. "There wait Arnkel and Heidrek."
"We think that Arnkel may have made an end of Heidrek's power," I said.
At that she shook her head.
"Arnkel has had old dealings with Heidrek. He has sailed with him, I know. It is more likely that after he had done with me, he made some sort of terms with him, finding out who the attackers were. We did not know at first, but I heard the men name Heidrek as the ship was fired."