And he was silent for a while.

Now my father came aft, and sitting down by the Dane, asked him how
he came to risk sailing in the little boat.

"I know not if you can believe me," answered Lodbrok, "but I will
tell you in a few words. I have been blown from off the Jutland
shore and have won through the gale safely. That is all. But it was
by my own fault, for I must needs take the boat and put out to sea
with my hawk there to find fresh sport. It seemed to me, forsooth,
that a great black-backed gull or fierce skua would give me a fine
flight or two. And so it was; but I rowed out too far, and before I
bethought myself, both wind and tide were against me. I had
forgotten how often after calm comes a shift of wind, and it had
been over still for an hour or so. Then the gale blew up suddenly.
I could have stemmed the tide, as often before; but wind and tide
both were my masters then.

"That was three days and two nights ago. Never thought I to see
another sunset, for by midday of that first day I broke an oar, and
knew that home I could never win; so I made shift with the floor
boards, as you saw, for want of canvas. After that there is little
to tell, for it was ever wave after wave, and gray flying clouds
ever over me, and at night no rest, but watching white wave crests
coming after me through the dark."

"Some of us thought that you were a Finn, at least," said my father
as the Dane paused.

"Not once or twice only on this voyage have I wished myself a Finn,