Then in all haste the king sends his thane for help to the party they have left; and so he sits on the boat's gunwale and watches the worn face pityingly.
Now come his men, and at his word they tend the maiden with all care, so that very soon she revives again, and can tell her tale.
Beyond the hunger and thirst there has indeed been little hardship to a daughter of the sea in the summer weather, for the breeze has been kindly and steady, and the boat stanch and swift.

There has been rain too, gentle, and enough to stave off the utmost thirst.
All this she tells the king truly; and then he must know how she came to lose her own shore.

And at that she weeps, but is ready.

In the long hours she has conned every tale that may be made, and it is on her lips.
She is the orphan daughter of a Danish jarl, she says, and her father has been slain.

She has been set adrift by the chief who has taken her lands, for her folk had but power to ask that grace for her.