“If we make the Shetland Islands,” I answered, “there are Norsemen who will see that all is done rightly.  There they will lay the king in mound as becomes a chief of our land.”

“And if not?”

“We might in any case make the Danish shore.”

“Where a Norse chief will find no honour.  Better that he were sunk in the sea here.  I would that this might be done, if we have any doubt as to reaching a land where your folk were known.”

“It may be done, Lady Gerda,” I answered, while into my mind came the words which the old chief seemed to have spoken to me in the night.  “It may be the best thing in the end.  But let us wait.  Shall I speak of this to the others for you?”

“Aye, do so,” she said.  “What have they thought?—­for you three must have spoken thereof already.”

“It has been in the mind of all of us to take the chief back to some land where he will be honoured.  We have spoken of naught else as yet.  I will say that it has seemed to me that the Christian folk have more care for the honour of the dead than have we.”

“That is all I needed to hear,” she said simply.  “I have feared lest it had been rather the other way.”

Now I looked aft, and saw Bertric staring under his hand astern, and stepped to the other gunwale to see what it was at which he looked.  But I could make out nothing.  The sea was rising a little, but that was of course as the breeze freshened steadily.  There was no sign of change or of heavier weather to come, and no dark line along the eastward sea warned me of a coming squall.  Yet Bertric still turned from the helm and looked astern.

“What is it?” asked Gerda.  “Go and see, and call me if it is aught.”

So I went aft again, and stood beside Bertric, asking him what had caught his eye.

“I cannot say for certain,” he said; “but it seemed to me that for a moment somewhat like a sail lifted on the sea’s rim off yonder.”

He pointed off the port quarter, and turned to the helm again, leaving me to see if I could catch sight of what he had seen.  Maybe it was but the dipping wing of a gull.

But it was not that.  Presently I also saw the speck he meant, and it did not disappear again.  It was the head of a square, brown sail, the ship herself to which it belonged being hull down, but holding the same course as ourselves, or thereabouts, so far as one could judge as yet.  And before long a second hove up from astern the first.

“They are running a bit freer than we,” Bertric said.  “They have a shift of wind astern of them, whereby they are overhauling us.”

“Two brown-sailed ships,” said I.  “They mind one too much of Heidrek to be pleasant, else one might welcome the coming of any honest Norsemen who would help us to do the right.”

“Wait, and I will tell you,” answered Bertric somewhat grimly.  “I cannot mistake Heidrek’s ships once I get a fair sight of them.”