"I thought you landed here." Bertric looked at me, and I at him, and Gerda caught the glance.
"There is something which you fear to tell me," she said steadily.
"Let it be spoken at once, for we have faced danger together ere this, have we not ?" "Have you not seen a large boat down the strait ?" I asked lamely.
"No," she said, and was stepping forward to the edge of the water, past the screen of low shore bushes to look, but I stayed her.
"It is the boat which we fear," I said.

"There are Danes in her, and we think they are seeking the wreck." She looked me in the face for a moment, and read what was written there.
"We might welcome the coming of honest Vikings," she said, "whether Dane or Norse.

They know how to befriend a woman who needs help.
These men whom you fear and who seek the wreck can only be the men of our enemy." Then Bertric said: "I cannot mistake the boat which I have helped to pull so many a weary time.

It is Heidrek's.

He has followed us, and has somewhere heard of the fate of the ship.