"Monastery, my son? There is none here." "Why, then, whence come you? Are you weather bound here also?" "Aye, by the storms of the world, my son. We are what men call hermits." Dalfin looked at me with a rueful face when he heard that. What a hermit might be I did not at all know, and it meant nothing to me. I was glad enough to think that there was a roof of any sort for Gerda. "Why, father," said my comrade, "you do not sleep on the bare ground, surely?" "Not at all, my son. There are six of us, and each has his cell." "Cannot you find shelter for one shipwrecked lady? It will not be for long, as we will go hence with the first chance. We have our boats." Now all this while the hermit had his eye on Dalfin's splendid torque, and at last he spoke of it, hesitatingly. "My son, it is not good for a man to show idle curiosity--but it is no foolish question if I ask who you are that you wear the torque of the O'Neills which was lost." "I am Dalfin of Maghera, father. The torque has come back to me, for Dubhtach is avenged." At that the hermit gave somewhat like a smothered shout, and his stately way fell from him altogether. He went on his knee before Dalfin, and seized his hand and kissed it again and again, crying words of welcome. "My prince, my prince," he said, with tears of joy running down his cheeks. "It was told me that you had gone across the seas--but I did not know it was for this." Dalfin reddened, and raised the hermit from the sand. "Father," he said quickly, "I am not the avenger. It is a long tale--but the lady, who is a queen in Norway, shipwrecked with us here by a strange fate, has to do with the winning back of the torque." "A queen!" said the hermit quickly. "Then the rule of which I spoke must needs be broken; nay, not broken, but set aside. Now, where are your men?" "Never a man have we. There is Malcolm here, and Bertric, a Saxon thane, who is my friend also and a good Christian, and the poor young queen, and no more." The hermit threw up his hands. "All drowned!" he cried. "Alack, alack! May their souls rest in peace!" "We sailed without them, father. There were none, and so they are all safe at home." "Good luck to them--for if they had been here they were drowned, every man of them," said the hermit with much content, looking at me with some wonder when I laughed. "They would not be the first by many a score whom we have buried here," he said in reproof. "Aye, heathen Lochlann and Christian Scot, and homely Erse yonder. It is good to see even a few who have escaped from this shore." He bowed his head for a moment, and his lips moved. Then he turned to Dalfin as a councillor might turn to his prince, and asked what he would have the brothers do for him. "Come and ask the lady," answered Dalfin, and so we went to the fire, where Gerda and Bertric rose up to meet us.