One does not say, 'Bide alive, because I saw you too soon to be harmed by you.' Mercy to the beast that might be, but not to the child who shall some day set his hand on it." "Eh, well! The wind is off shore, and it is a far cry to succour, and Ran waits the drowning." "I know not that Ran cares for women." "Maybe a witch like herself.

They are coming!" Now through a winding gap in the line of dunes comes from inland a little company of men and women, swiftly and in silence.

The two men range themselves on either bow of the boat, and stand at attention as the newcomers near them, and so wait.

Maybe there are two-score people, led by a man and woman, who walk side by side without word or look passing between them.

The man is tall and handsome, armed in the close-knit ring-mail shirt of the Dane, with gemmed sword hilt and golden mountings to scabbard and dirk, and his steel helm and iron-gray hair seem the same colour in the shadowless light of the dull sky overhead.