“Nay, lady,” said Dalfin, with all courtesy, “I do not know him you mean.  I am only Dalfin, Prince of Maghera, of the northern O’Neills.”

Now, at that magnificent “only” I saw Bertric trying to stifle somewhat like a grin beyond the shoulder of his charge.

“Lady,” he said, “we are but mortal men.  We are here to help you, for the ship has not taken fire, and you are safe.”

She gave a little gasp and sank back on the roll of canvas we had set for a pillow, and her eyes closed.  I put back the last timber hastily, and came aft, getting out of sight behind the bedstead, being in no wise willing to be hailed as Thor again.  As for Dalfin, he poured out another cup of the wine and gave it to Bertric, who had signed to him for it.

“She will be herself directly,” he said sagely.  “Who was it that she took me for?”

“Only a heathen god, and a worthy one,” answered the Saxon, setting the cup to the lips of the girl, and making her drink some of its contents slowly.  “Neither you nor Malcolm will ever be held quite so highly again.  Make the most of it.”

I think that he meant the lady to hear him speak thus cheerfully, and it is certain that she did so.  A little wan smile flitted across her face, and then she flushed red, and opened her eyes.  Her first glance fell on the penthouse, and she shuddered somewhat.  Then she sat up and looked round for us, seeing Bertric for the first time, as he stood at the head of the rough couch.

“Forgive me, friends,” she said quietly.  “I think I was not quite myself.  I must have been in a long swoon.  There was smoke also rising round me when last I knew anything.”

Now she slipped from the bedstead and set her feet on the deck, facing us.  I saw her look pass quickly over our dress, and minded that we were in no holiday trim.  She saw Bertric in the thrall’s dress, and Dalfin in his torn and scorched and sea-stained green hunting tunic and leather hose, and myself only in the Norse dress, and that war torn and grimed with the fight in the hall, which seemed so many years ago now, and with the long sea struggle that came thereafter.  Yet she did not shrink from us.

“I cannot understand it all,” she said.  “How comes it that you are here, and thus?  You seem as men who have fought, and are hardly yet restored after the weariness of fight.”

“We have fought, lady, and have fared ill.  We were captives and have escaped; and as we fled by sea we fell in with this ship when at our wits’ end.”

So I answered, for my comrades looked at me.  The fight was mine, so to speak.

“It seems well for me,” she said, smiling somewhat sadly.  “I had no thought but to be burnt.  Now I have escaped that.  Tell me how it may have been.”

I did so, wondering all the time how she came to be in that terrible place, for she spoke of escape.  That she would tell us in her own time, no doubt.