“Easily told,” he said.  “When I was at home in England, I was Bertric the ship thane, and had my place in Lyme, in Dorset.  I owned my own ship, and was thane by right therefore, according to the old laws.  Last year I fared to Flanders, where I had done well before, in the summer.  In September I was homeward bound, and met this Heidrek outside the Scheldt mouth.  He took my goods, and burned my ship, and kept me, because I was likely to be able to pilot him, knowing all that coast.  Oh, aye, we fought him; but he had two ships to my one, and four to one in men.  Asbiorn saved me, I think, at that time; but I have never had a chance of escape until tonight.  I saw it coming, and was ready.  You were but a few minutes before me.  Now I know that I am in luck to find comrades.”

“May it be so,” I said, holding out my hand to him.

There was that in the frank way of this Saxon which won me, half Scot though I am, and therefore prone to be cautious with men.  He took it with a steady grip, and smiled, while Dalfin clapped his broad shoulder, and hailed him as a friend in adversity.

“We three should do well in the end, if we hold together,” Dalfin said.  “But you and I are in less trouble than Malcolm.  He has lost all; while we were both wanderers from home only.  My folk will trouble not at all for me for a year or so, and a shipmaster may be away as long as he chooses.  None will look for you till you return, I suppose?  Well, I came out to find adventures, and on my word, I am in the way to find them.”

“Not a bad beginning,” laughed Bertric.  “As for me, it is no new thing that I should be a winter abroad, and my folk have long ceased to trouble much about me.  I am twenty-five, and took to the sea when I was seventeen.  Well, if Heidrek has spoilt this voyage, we can afford it.  Luck has been with me so far.  If I win home again it is but to start fresh with a new ship, or settle down on the old manors in the way of my forebears.”

Now, the remembrance that I had not one who would so much as think of me took hold of me, for the first time, as these two talked of their people, and it fell sorely heavily on me.  I could say naught, and turned away from these light-hearted wanderers.

They knew, and left me to myself in all kindness, for there was no word they could say which would help me.  Bertric spoke again to Dalfin, asking him how it came to pass that he could not swim, which was as much a wonder to him as it had been to me.

“Yesterday I would have asked you why I should be able,” Dalfin answered lightly, “today I know well enough.  But my home in Maghera, where we of the northern O’Neills have our place and state, lies inland.  Truly, there is the great Lough Neagh, on which, let me tell you, we have fought the Danes once or twice; but if there is any swimming to be done for the princes, there are always henchmen to get wet for them.  Never did I dream that a day would come when there was swimming which no man could do for me.  That is why.”