Estein told her of the storm at sea and the fight with the
Vikings; how they had fallen man by man, and how he too would have
been numbered amongst the dead but for the tideway and the rocks.

As she listened, her eyes betrayed her interest in the tale, and
when he had finished, she said,--

"I have heard of Liot and Osmund. They are the most pitiless of
all the robbers in these seas. Give thanks that you escaped them."

He asked her name, and she told him it was Osla, daughter of a
Norse leader who had fought in the Irish seas, and had finally
settled in Ireland. There his daughter was born and passed her
early girlhood; and it was a trace of the Irish accent that Estein
had noticed in her speech. In one fatal battle her two brothers
fell, her father was forced to fly from the land, and Osla had
left her Irish home with him and come to reside in Orkney.

"He is a holy Christian man," she said. "Once he was a famous
Viking, and his name was well known in the west seas. Now, he
would even have his name forgotten, and he is only known as
Andreas, which was the name of one of the blessed apostles; and
here we two live in a little lonely island, keeping aloof from all
men, and striving to live as did the early fathers."

"That must be a quiet life for you," said Estein.

"I sometimes think so myself," she answered with a smile. "And
what do men call you?"