beauty, hers is an evil face to look on at this time. And the women
who gaze on her have no pity in their eyes, nor have the men.

Once again the great jarl speaks, and his words are cold and
measured.

"Also, I and our wisest hold that what you have tried to compass
was out of the longing for power that ever lies in the heart of
youth. We had done no more than laugh thereat had you been content
to try to win your will with the ancient wiles of woman that lie in
beauty and weakness. But for the evil ways in which you have
wrought the land is accursed, and will be so as long as we suffer
you. Go hence, and meet elsewhere what fate befalls you. In the
skill you have in the seaman's craft is your one hope. We leave it
you."

Then, without a word of answer or so much as a look aside, the girl
of her own accord steps into the boat; and at a sign from their
lord the two men launch her from the shelving sand into the sea,
following her, knee deep, among the little breakers that hardly
hinder their steps. They see that in her look is deepest hate and
wrath, but they pay no heed to it. And even as their hands leave
the gunwale, the girl goes to the mast, and with the skill and ease
of long custom hoists the sail, and so making fast the halliard
deftly, comes aft again to ship the steering oar, and seat herself
as the breeze wakes the ripples at the bow and the land slips away
from her. She has gone, and never looks back.

Then a sort of sigh whispers among the women folk on shore; but it
is not as a sigh of grief, but rather as if a danger had passed