"I know not your name, fair maiden," he said, "but this I know,
that you have saved my life. Will you accept this Viking's gift
from me? It is all that the sea has left me."

"Nay, keep such gifts for those who deserve them. It would have
been an unchristian act to let you drown."

"You use a word that is strange to me; but I would that you might
take this ring."

"No, no!" she cried decidedly; "it will be time enough to talk of
gifts when I have earned them. Not," she added, a little proudly,
"that it is my wish to earn gifts. But you are wet and wounded;
come where I can give you shelter, poor though it be."

"Any shelter will seem good to me. Yet, ere I go, I would fain
learn something of my comrades' fate."

He scanned the sound narrowly, and in all its long stretch there
was not a sign of friend or foe. About a mile back the fatal reef,
bared by the ebbing tide, showed its line of black heads high out
of the water, but of ships there was no vestige to be seen. It was
long past mid-day by the sun, and he knew that he must have been
unconscious for some hours. In that time, such of the Vikings as
had escaped the rocks had evidently sailed away, leaving only the
dead in the sound.

"They are gone," he said, turning away, "friends and foes--gone,
or drowned, as I should have been, fair maid, but for you."