About sunrise it breezed up again, and cheered us mightily. That
lasted for half an hour, and then the sail flapped against the
mast, and the calm we feared fell. The long swell sank little by
little until we floated on a dead smooth sea, under brightest
sunshine, with the seabirds calling round us. Nor was there the
long line of the Orkney hills to be seen, however dimly, away to
the eastward as we had hoped.

"How will the tide serve us hereabout?" asked Bertric presently.

"The flood will set in to the eastward in two hours' time," I
answered. "It depends on how we lie on the Orkney coasts whether it
drifts us to the northward or to the southward. We have been set to
the westward all night with the ebb."

"Wind may come with the flood," said he.

And that was the best we could hope for. But I set the steering oar
in the sculling rowlock aft, and did what I could in that way. At
least, it saved some of the westward drift, if it was of very
little use else.

Dalfin curled up in the sun and slept. He had no care for the
possible troubles which were before us, knowing naught of the sea;
but this calm made the Saxon and myself anxious enough.

"After all," I said, "maybe it will only be a matter of hunger for
a day or two."

Bertric smiled, and pointed to the locker under the stern thwart,