So it came to pass that very early in the next dawning the ship slid away from under the lee of the islands and headed southward on her voyage, with cheers and good wishes to set her forth.  The last message we had from shore came from Dalfin the Prince, and that was an Irish brogue of untanned deerskin, laced with gold, which flew through the dusk like a bat to Gerda’s feet from the deck of one of Hakon’s ships as we passed her.  Words in the Erse came also from the dim figure who cast it, whereat Phelim and I laughed.  Gerda asked what they were, and we had to tell her.

“Good luck to you for the thief of my heart,” he cried.  “If I had not got one, and may never set eyes on your sweet face more, I would wish you the same today and tomorrow.”

“Not much heart-broken is Dalfin,” said Bertric, laughing.

Thereafter is little which need be told of that voyage in the still, autumn weather of the north.  We passed, at times sailing, and now and then with the oars going easily, and always in bright weather, through the countless islands which fringe the Norway shores, some bare and rocky, and some clad with birch and fir even to the edge of the waves.  Far inland the great mountains rose, snow-capped now, and shone golden and white and purple in the evening sun; and everywhere the forests climbed to meet the snow, and the sound of the cattle horns came at the homing hour to tell of the saeters hidden in the valleys.

Once we met a ship passing swiftly northward under oars, and were not so sure that we might not have to fight or fly.  But her crew were flying from the south, and hailed us to know if it were true that Hakon had come from England to claim his own.  And when we hailed in answer that so it was, and that we were of his force, the men roared and cheered while we might hear them.  Eric’s day was done.

I think that it was on the fifth day that we came at last to the break in the line of fringing islands which marks the opening of the Stavanger Fjord.  There we met the long heave and swell of the open sea, and it was good to feel the lift and quiver of the staunch ship as she swung over the rollers again.

Across the open stretch of sea we sailed, and the land along which we coasted was flat and sandy, all unlike that which we had passed for so many days.  But beyond that the mountains were not far, though in no wise so high as those farther north.  And at last Gerda showed us the place where she had thought to lay Thorwald, her grandfather, to rest in his ship.  We could see the timber slipway, which still had been left where it was made for that last beaching, and we could see, too, that here and there the land was turned up into heaps, where the place for the mound had been prepared.  There was a little village also, and a hut or two had been burnt.

“Our doing,” said Asbiorn.  “Forgive us, Queen Gerda.”

“You at least had no part therein,” she said gently.  “The rest is forgotten.  Now we have no long way to go before I am again at home.”