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Updated: April 30, 2025
Maybe it was all useless, but we would leave nothing to be spied which might bring the men to the island sooner than needful. That took only a few minutes, but in them I cannot tell how many wild plans for Gerda's safety went through my mind.
Then the fog turned dusky and gray again, and the ship alongside us was gone as it came, suddenly, and in silence, and Bertric came back to us. Gerda's faintness was passing, for she was but overwrought, though she still leaned against me. "What is it?" she asked. "What does it mean?" "There is no harm in it, lady," answered Bertric. "I have seen it once or twice before, and naught came thereof."
An oar flashed past me on a wave, and Phelim shipped his oar with a smothered cry. Fergus had fainted at last. I heard the sharp howl of delight from the men astern as they saw that, but Bertric and I never ceased pulling. And suddenly Gerda's face lit up with a new hope, and she pointed to the ships and cried to us to look. "The leading ship is heading for us," she said breathlessly.
"Now we must sign our names;" and after much discussion and laughter the twelve names appeared on the paper, written in a circle without any beginning or end, Sigrid's and Hilma's and Oscar's and Gerda's and all. "Put it in the box and we'll nail on the cover," cried Oscar, picking up the hammer and pounding as if he were driving a dozen nails at once.
They were all right: they all fitted in with the room and with each other. Barry said "I've not been idle while walking. I've secured a secretary. Gerda says she's coming to work at the office for us for a bit. Now, at once." He had not Gerda's knack of silence. Gerda would shut up tight over her plans and thoughts, like a little oyster. She was no babbler; she did things and never talked.
Beside them, on laths and perches, sat nearly a hundred pigeons, all asleep, seemingly; but yet they moved a little when the robber maiden came. "They are all mine," said she, at the same time seizing one that was next to her by the legs and shaking it so that its wings fluttered. "Kiss it," cried the little girl, and flung the pigeon in Gerda's face.
She and Gerda got into the carriage, and then they drove over stubble and stones further and further into the wood. The little robber girl was as big as Gerda, but much stronger; she had broader shoulders, and darker skin, her eyes were quite black, with almost a melancholy expression. She put her arm round Gerda's waist and said
Then he turned to Gerda, who stood with clasped hands waiting to hear the end of the rapid speech. "It is our only hope," he said again. "We must take that way, though it is hard to leave these holy men to their fate." Then, of a sudden, a light came into Gerda's eyes, and she flushed as with a fresh hope. "Those other ships!" she cried. "You said they were not Danish.
The last message we had from shore came from Dalfin the Prince, and that was an Irish brogue of untanned deerskin, laced with gold, which flew through the dusk like a bat to Gerda's feet from the deck of one of Hakon's ships as we passed her. Words in the Erse came also from the dim figure who cast it, whereat Phelim and I laughed. Gerda asked what they were, and we had to tell her.
They seemed to be asleep, but they fluttered about a little when the children came in. 'They are all mine, said the little robber girl, seizing one of the nearest. She held it by the legs and shook it till it flapped its wings. 'Kiss it, she cried, dashing it at Gerda's face.
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