It passed, and I could see again, and struggled on.  Then the outward flow began again, and wrestled with me so that I could not stem it, and together Dalfin and I, he with one arm round my shoulder, and in the other hand the oar which he held and used as a staff, fought against it until it was spent.  The rounded pebbles slipped and rolled under my feet as they were torn back to the sea, but the worst was past.  Up the long slope through the yeasty foam we went, knee deep, and then ankle deep, ever more swiftly with every pace, and the next wave broke far behind us, and its swirl of swift water round my waist only helped me.  Through it we climbed to the dry stretches of the beach, and were safe.

I heard Gerda speak breathless words of thanks as I set her down, and then I looked round for Bertric.  He was two waves behind us, as one may say, and I was just in time to see a breaker catch him up, smite his broad shoulders, and send him down on his face with whirling arms into its hollow, where the foam hid him as it curled over.  He, too, had an oar for support, but it had failed him, and as he fell I caught the flash of somewhat red slung like a sack across his back.

Gerda cried out as she saw him disappear, but Dalfin and I laughed as one will laugh at the like mishap when one is bathing.  That was for the moment only, however, for he did not rise as soon as he might, and then I knew what had kept him so far behind us, and what was in the red cloak I had seen.  He had stayed to bring the gold and jewels in their casket, and now their weight was holding him down.  So I went in and reached him through a wave, and set him on his feet again, gasping, and trying to laugh, and we went back to shore safely enough.  I grumbled at the risk he had run, but he said that his burden was not so heavy as mine had been.

For a few minutes we sat on the beach and found our breath again, Gerda trying to tell us what she felt concerning what we had done, and then giving up, because, I suppose, she could not find the right words; which was a relief, for she made too much of it all.  Then the four of us went up the beach to the shelter of the low, grassy sand hills above it, and there Dalfin turned and faced us with a courtly bow, saying gravely: 

“Welcome to Ireland, Queen Gerda, and you two good comrades.  There would have been a better welcome had we come in less hurry, but no more hearty one.  The luck of the O’Neills has stood us in good stead.”

“If it had not been for the skill of these two friends, it seems to me that even the luck of the torque had been little,” said Gerda quietly.  “You must not forget that.”

“It is part of the said luck that they have been here,” answered Dalfin, with his eyes twinkling as he bowed to us.  “All praise to their seamanship.”

Then he sat down suddenly as if his knees had given way, and looked up as if bewildered.

“Is this silly island also afloat?” he asked, “for it feels more like a ship than any other dry land I was ever on.