The sea outside bore not only ships and boats, but sometimes small white icebergs came floating past. They were big ice-floes that had been thrown one upon another and were now sailing southward. They shone like silver in the morning sun, and now and then they showed as pink as though they had been strewed with roses. But high up among the whistling of the wind loud cries were heard, now like singing voices, now like pealing trumpets. There was a sound of jubilation in these cries, swelling the heart of him who heard them. They came from a long flight of swans on their way from the south. But when the skipper saw the icebergs moving southward and the swans flying to the north such longing seized him that he wrung his hands. "Woe's me, that I must lie here!" he said. "Will the ice never break up in this bay? I may lie waiting here many days yet." Just as he said this, he saw a man come driving on the ice. He came out of a narrow channel on the Marstrand side, and he drove as calmly on the ice as if he did not know the waves had begun once more to carry ships and boats. As he drove under the stern of the gallias he hailed the skipper: "Ho, you there, frozen in the ice, do you lack food aboard? Will you buy my salt herring or dried ling or smoked eel?" The skipper did not trouble to answer him. He only shook his fist at him and swore. Then the fish hawker stepped off his load. He took a bunch of hay from the sledge and laid it in front of his horse. Then he climbed up on the deck of the gallias. When he faced the skipper he said to him very earnestly: "Today I have not come to sell fish. But I know that you are a God-fearing man. Therefore I have come to ask your help to find a maiden whom the Scotsmen brought out to your ship with them yester-night." "I know naught of their bringing any maiden with them," said the skipper. "I have heard no woman's voice aboard the ship tonight." "I am Torarin the fish hawker," said the other; "maybe you have heard of me? It was I who supped with Herr Arne at Solberga parsonage the same night he was murdered. Since then I have had Herr Arne's foster daughter under my roof, but last night she was stolen away by his murderers, and they have surely brought her with them to your vessel." "Are Herr Arne's murderers aboard my vessel?" asked the skipper in dismay. "You see that I am a poor and feeble man," said Torarin. "I have a palsied arm, and therefore I am fearful of taking upon myself any bold and hazardous thing. I have known these many days who were Herr Arne's murderers, but I have not dared to bring them to justice. And because I have held my peace they have made their escape and have found occasion to carry the maiden with them. But now I have said to myself that I will have no more of my conscience in this matter. At least I will try to save the little maid." "If Herr Arne's murderers are on board my ship, why does not the watch come out and arrest them?"