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. He would have slain her, but that they watched him. Doubtless he had poisoned their minds against her, or they would not have suffered thus far of ill to her even. Otherwise she cannot believe so ill of them. It is all terrible to her. And so, with many tears, she accounts for her want of oars, and provides against the day when some chapman from beyond seas shall know her and tell the tale of her shame. At the end she weeps, and begs for kindness to an outcast pitifully. There is no reason why men should not believe the tale, and told with those wondrous tear-dimmed eyes on them, they doubt not a word of it. It is no new thing that a usurper should make away with the heiress, and doubtless they think her beauty saved her from a worse fate. So in all honour the maiden is taken to Lincoln, and presently given into the care of one of the great ladies of the court. But as they ride homeward with the weary maiden in the midst of the company, Offa the king is silent beyond his wont, so that the thane who rode yonder with him asks if aught is amiss. "Naught," answers Offa. "But if it is true that men say that none but a heaven-sent bride will content me, maybe this is the one of whom they spoke."