y, 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.

"It will do so for a time," I said. "Wait till you lose the swing
of the decks and find your shore legs again."

"Look yonder," Bertric said. "There is the other ship."

We had forgotten her for a time in our own perils. She had followed
our course, though for what reason we could not tell. Now she had
borne up and was heading away westward, some four miles from shore,
and sailing well and swiftly, being a great longship. Soon a gray
wall of rain swept over her and hid her, and when it cleared in
half an hour's time she was beyond our sight.

It seemed pretty certain by this time that there could be no people
on this side of the island at least, or they would have been here.
We climbed to the highest of the sand hills, and looked over what
we could see of the place, but there was no sign of hut or man.
Beyond the sand hills there was a stretch of open moorland, which
rose to the hill across by the strait between us and the mainland,
and both hill and moor were alike green and fresh--or seemed so to
us after the long days at sea. It was not a bad island, and Dalfin
said that there should be fishers here, though he was in no way
certain. All round us the sea birds flitted, scolding us for our
nearness to their nests among the hills and on the edge of the
moor, and they were very tame, as if unused to the sight of man. I
thought we could make out some goats feeding on the hill side, but
that was all. So far as we could judge, the island may have been a
mile long, or less, and a half mile across.

We went back to the lee of the sand hills after seeing that there
was no better shelter at hand. There it seemed warm after the long
days on the open sea, but we were very wet. So we found a sheltered
hollow whence we could look across the beach to the ship, and there
gathered a great pile of driftwood and lit a fire, starting it with
dry grass and the tinder which Bertric kept, seamanlike, with his
flint and steel in his leathern pouch, secure from even the sea.
Then we sat round it and dried ourselves more or less, while the
tide reached its full, left the bare timbers of the ship's stem
standing stark and swept clean of the planking, and having done its
worst, sank swiftly, leaving her dry at its lowest.

So soon as we could, Bertric and I climbed on board over the bow