sorrow. And many a time they had to tell their tale anew, as folk
came into the hall one after another from field and fell. But the
young men came down to the sea, and found Hallblithe's black horse
straying about amongst the tamarisk-bushes above the beach; and they
looked thence over the sand, and saw neither Hallblithe nor any man:
and they gazed out seaward, and saw neither ship nor sail on the
barren brine. Then they went down on to the sand, and sundered their
fellowship, and went half one way, half the other, betwixt the
sandhills and the surf, where now the tide was flowing, till the
nesses of the east and the west, the horns of the bay, stayed them.
Then they met together again by the Rollers, when the sun was within
an hour of setting. There and then they laid hand to that ship which
is called the Seamew, and they ran her down over the Rollers into the
waves, and leapt aboard and hoisted sail, and ran out the oars and
put to sea; and a little wind was blowing seaward from the gates of
the mountains behind them.

So they quartered the sea-plain, as the kestrel doth the water-
meadows, till the night fell on them, and was cloudy, though whiles
the wading moon shone out; and they had seen nothing, neither sail
nor ship, nor aught else on the barren brine, save the washing of
waves and the hovering of sea-fowl. So they lay-to outside the horns
of the bay and awaited the dawning. And when morning was come they
made way again, and searched the sea, and sailed to the out-skerries,
and searched them with care; then they sailed into the main and fared
hither and thither and up and down: and this they did for eight
days, and in all that time they saw no ship nor sail, save three
barks of the Fish-biters nigh to the Skerry which is called Mew-
stone.