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Updated: September 18, 2025
They wait for ransom they have demanded. If it comes not, they will burn and harry all Ulster." "How many ships, then?" asked Dalfin, on hearing that threat. "Two ships, lord, and great ones." The prince laughed at the man. "What, burn all Ulster with two shiploads of men? That is a great boast which we shall not care for. Where is my father, the king and where is the muster?"
I could swim in the mail well enough, and she could swim also. There might be a chance for her. I feared more for Dalfin. Now we flew down on the first line of breakers, lifted on the crest, half blinded with the foam, and plunged across it.
The black bow of the boat lifted on the waves close to us, and I swam to her and climbed in over her stern. By this time the ship was too far off to be dangerous, unless it was thought worthwhile to come back to pick up the boat, which was unlikely, as it would have been done at once if at all. Between us, the Saxon and I managed to get Dalfin into her, and then our new companion followed.
I had no thought that I could be welcome, and was staying, but Phelim called me. "Malcolm is a Norse Scot," said Dalfin quietly. "He is not of our faith, and I do not know if he may come. "If he will, he may," answered the hermit kindly. "He can be no evil heathen, seeing that he is your friend."
It was the gathering-place to which Dalfin had gone this morning, and no doubt his father, Myrkiartan the King, was there. There came a hoarse roar across the water to us, which rose and fell, and shaped itself into a song, so terrible that I saw Hakon's men grow restless as they heard it. The pirates were singing their war song for the last time.
Bertric nodded, and I went forward and called her accordingly, rousing Dalfin, who slumbered in the sun under the lee of the boats amidships, as I passed him. Gerda came quickly from her awning as she heard me, and saw the two ships at once. They were then some eight miles astern of us, and she looked at me with an unspoken question. "They are Heidrek's ships," I said.
Dalfin is still in Norway, and high in honour with Hakon, and here he will bide, being wedded, and holding himself to be a very Norseman. There might be worse than he, in all truth. And Asbiorn is with Hakon, as the head of his courtmen, silent and ready, and well liked by all.
But for the skilful handling of the boat by Bertric, I know we might have been swamped at times in the following seas, but Dalfin knew naught of the peril. He baled when it was his turn, cheerfully, and slept be times, so that I envied him his carelessness and trust in us. The wind wore round to the northwest at its last and hardest, and then sank quickly.
I took an axe from the wall, feeling for it in the darkness, but I waxed faint and breathless, and the roof is low and I could not use it. I mind that I set it back; and that is all until I woke here to see, as I thought, Thor with his hammer and Freyr beside him, and so " That was all; and it was enough. Only Dalfin had one question to ask.
He swung himself up from the boat over the high gunwale, and then gave me a hand, and together we hauled up Dalfin, and so stood and stared at all we saw in wonder. Everything was in perfect trim, and the ship was fitted as if for a long cruise. She had two handsome boats, with carven gunwales and stem and stern posts set on their chocks side by side amidships, with their sails and oars in them.
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