“There is another ship in the offing,” I said to Thorgils presently, when we, with the Dane just astern of us, were some five miles from land and had ceased to look back to Tenby.  Nona had gone into the cabin away from the wind, which came a little chill from the east on the open sea, and maybe also that she felt the chill of parting from her father more than she would have us know.

“Ay,” he said, looking at the far vessel under his hand, “I do not make out what she is—­but if she is a trader—­well, our Danes are likely to get some reward for their trouble.  They will not have come out for nothing.”

I laughed, for any trader in the Severn sea knew that he must be ready to pay more than harbour dues if he had the ill luck to meet with the Danes.  They would make him pay for freedom, but would not harm him unless he was foolish enough to fight.

So we held on, and the strange sail, which was seemingly beating up channel against the wind, put about and headed for us somewhat sooner than Thorgils expected.

“She is making mighty short boards,” he said.  “She should surely have headed over to the coast yet awhile.  Would have fetched a bit of a breeze off the land there, maybe.”

Thorgils watched this vessel curiously, for there were things about her which seemed to puzzle him.  The men, too, were beginning to talk of her and watch her.  And presently I saw that our consort, the Dane, had slackened her speed, so that there was a mile of water between us astern.

“Oh ay,” said Thorgils, as I spoke of this, “they mean to pick her up when we have passed her.  They can overhaul her as they like.”

Now we drew near to the strange ship, and it seemed to Owen and me, as we stood side by side on the after deck beside Thorgils at the helm, that we saw here and there among the men on her deck the sparkle of arms as she lifted and swayed to the waves.  She was a long black ship, not like the Dane at all, and her sail was three cornered on a long tapering yard, quite unlike ours, which was square.  Thorgils said that she was a trader from the far south, a foreigner, even from so far as Spain, though why she was here he could not tell.  Mostly such never came round the Land’s End.

“She wants to speak with us,” he said presently.  “I suppose she has lost herself in strange waters.”

The vessel was right across our bows now, some half mile away, and her tall sail was flapping in the wind as she hove to.  Thorgils put the helm down so as to pass to windward of her, and as he did so the sail of the stranger filled again, and she headed as if waiting to sail with us for a while.  Now we could see that many of her crew, which did not seem large, were armed, and I thought little of that, seeing that there were Danes about.  But Thorgils waxed silent, and sent a man to the masthead suddenly, for some reason which was not plain to me.

No sooner was the man there than he shouted somewhat in broad Norse sea language, which made our skipper start and knit his brows.