"We three should do well in the end, if we hold together," Dalfin
said. "But you and I are in less trouble than Malcolm. He has lost
all; while we were both wanderers from home only. My folk will
trouble not at all for me for a year or so, and a shipmaster may be
away as long as he chooses. None will look for you till you return,
I suppose? Well, I came out to find adventures, and on my word, I
am in the way to find them."

"Not a bad beginning," laughed Bertric. "As for me, it is no new
thing that I should be a winter abroad, and my folk have long
ceased to trouble much about me. I am twenty-five, and took to the
sea when I was seventeen. Well, if Heidrek has spoilt this voyage,
we can afford it. Luck has been with me so far. If I win home again
it is but to start fresh with a new ship, or settle down on the old
manors in the way of my forebears."

Now, the remembrance that I had not one who would so much as think
of me took hold of me, for the first time, as these two talked of
their people, and it fell sorely heavily on me. I could say naught,
and turned away from these light-hearted wanderers.

They knew, and left me to myself in all kindness, for there was no
word they could say which would help me. Bertric spoke again to
Dalfin, asking him how it came to pass that he could not swim,
which was as much a wonder to him as it had been to me.

"Yesterday I would have asked you why I should be able," Dalfin
answered lightly, "today I know well enough. But my home in
Maghera, where we of the northern O'Neills have our place and
state, lies inland. Truly, there is the great Lough Neagh, on
which, let me tell you, we have fought the Danes once or twice; but
if there is any swimming to be done for the princes, there are
always henchmen to get wet for them. Never did I dream that a day
would come when there was swimming which no man could do for me.
That is why."

"But it seems that you have ships, if you fought the Danes on the
water?"

"Never a ship! We fell on them in the fishers' coraghs--the skin
boats."

"And beat them?"

"Well, it was not to be expected; but we made them afraid."

Dalfin stood up in the boat unsteadily, and swung his arms to warm
himself. She was a wide and roomy fishing craft, and weatherly
enough, if she did make more leeway than one would wish in a
breeze.

"There is less wind," he said. "It is not so cold."

The long, smooth sea was going down also, or he would not have kept
his