With a last stroke the men drove the boats up, then leaped out and drew them up. Sigurd carried Astrid up the beach and looked around. The cliffs did not seem so steep now, and Sigurd realized that they would be able to climb them, just as Ulf joined him. The captain was in more hopeful spirits now.
"Your plan certainly saved us, lady," he exclaimed to Astrid. "I had given up hope—strange I did not think of those boats myself. But we so seldom use small boats that I never gave them a thought. Now, Fairhair, what had we best do?"
Sigurd looked out to sea, where the hull of the "Otter" was fast breaking up under the smashing blows of the waves. "Well, I think we had better take the arms and food from the boats, scale those cliffs, and see where we are. We have over a score of well-armed men, and the folk, whoever they are, will hesitate before molesting us."
Ulf turned and gave the necessary orders, then, followed by Biorn and the rest, they made for the cliffs. These, as Sigurd had foreseen, offered no great difficulties to the Norsemen, who were all used to climbing about their native fiords, and in half an hour they stood on the brow and looked about.
Before them lay a heavily wooded country, rolling with small hills and valleys, but without a sign of habitation. The storm was nearly over now, and while the seas still rolled mountain-high below them, the sun was just breaking through the clouds, and in the distance they caught the sheen of a river. The men hailed the sun with a cry of delight, and Ulf pointed to the river.
"Let us make for that, Sigurd, and there we can have fresh water and a meal. After that we can decide what to do."
So, striking away from the sea, they entered the forest. It was the end of autumn now, and though the leaves had fallen from many of the trees, the forest was composed in great part of pines, fresh and green. Even Biorn looked puzzled as he tried to make out the country.
"I do not think it is Scotland," he said, "and certainly it is neither the Fareys nor the Orkneys. It is not my own land of Wales, for that was far from our course; it might be Ireland, but I have never been in that land."
"Ireland!" cried Astrid. "Why, isn't that where men say Olaf Tryggveson is king?"
"So it is," rejoined Sigurd, "but it must be a wide land, and we have small hope of finding Northmen here."