“She will be more likely to take the vows, as have so many maidens of today who are in her case,” I said.  “I will do all for the nuns and her that I can.”

The three sisters came out now.  Two were weeping, and they were the nuns.  The third was flushed and looked troubled, and she cast a glance back into the dark cabin.  I heard the queen’s voice speaking fast to her, as it would seem, and she shrank away as if dreading it.

Elfric went to meet them, and then the queen herself came through the cabin door stooping, for it was not high.

“This is your doing,” she said to the abbot.  “Am I to be left without any attendants?”

“My queen,” the good man said, “we can take the sisters no further with us.  They must go ashore.”

The queen looked at the coast, which was plain enough now.  It was certain that she had no knowledge that we were returning to England.  That the ship was on another tack meant nothing to her.

“Why cannot they bide here and go on land with me?  We cannot be more than an hour in reaching the harbour,” and she pointed to Selsea.

“Tell her, father, I pray you,” said the maiden in a low voice.  “She believes that we are even now nearing her home.”

Then I thought that this might come more easily from myself, seeing that Elfric had to stay with her, and I stood before her, and spoke.

“My Queen, that is not the Norman shore which you see.  The Danes, into whose hands we have fallen, are taking us back to England.”

As I said this, the queen’s face grew white with rage, and she looked from Elfric to me, speechless.  On the deck above stood Egil, and he caught my eye, and looked ruefully at us.

“What!” she said, “has Cnut bought you also?  Is there no man whom I can trust?”

That was the most cruel thing that she could have said, but I knew what despair might lie behind her anger, and I answered nothing—­nor did Elfric.  We waited for the storm to pass.

“Ill it was that Ethelred trusted me to your hands—­” she began again.

But there was one who would not bear this.  The friendless maiden spoke plainly for us.

“Queen,” she said, “I have borne your reproaches to myself in silence, but I cannot bear that these brave servants of yours should be blamed.  Look at the abbot’s torn and dusty robes, look at the thane’s care-worn face—­are they in the plight of men who are bribed?”

But the queen made no answer, and her face was like stone as she looked on none of us, gazing straight before her.

“What lies on yonder deck?” the girl went on, pointing to where the two bodies lay under their covering.  “It is the thane’s sword and risk of life that stayed them from laying hands on you.  Does a bought man slay his buyers?”

Still the queen was silent, and then I said: 

“I think that you misjudge us, my queen.  Had we wished to betray you it would have been long ere this that the Danes would have been summoned to take you.”