“Come back!” I bawled. “Stand where you are or I’ll cleave your louse-bitten head!”

That stopped him, for he had no kin who would avenge him; but he would not come closer. Meanwhile the stranger had calmed down to the point where he could at least talk evenly.

“Was it the aitchbomb?” he asked. “Has the war started?”

He used that word often, aitchbomb, so I know it now, though unsure of what it means. It seems to be a kind of Greek fire. As for the war, I knew not which war he meant, and told him so.

“There was a great thunderstorm last night,” I added. “And you say you were out in one too. Perhaps Thor’s hammer knocked you from your place to here.”

“But where is here?” he replied. His voice was more dulled than otherwise, now that the first terror had lifted.

“I told you. This is Hillstead, which is on Iceland.”

“But that’s where I was!” he mumbled. “Reykjavik…what happened? Did the aitchbomb destroy everything while I was unconscious?”

“Nothing has been destroyed,” I said.

“Perhaps he means the fire at Olafsvik last month,” said Helgi.

“No, no, no!” He buried his face in his hands. After a while he looked up and said. “See here. I am Sergeant Gerald Roberts of the United States Army base on Iceland. I was in Reykjavik and got struck by lightning or something. Suddenly I was standing on the beach, and got frightened and ran. That’s all. Now, can you tell me how to get back to the base?”

Those were more or less his words, priest. Of course, we did not grasp half of it, and made him repeat it several times and explain the words. Even then we did not understand, except that he was from some country called the United States of America, which he said lies beyond Greenland to the west, and that he and some others were on Iceland to help our folk against their enemies. Now this I did not consider a lie—more a mistake or imagining. Grim would have cut him down for thinking us stupid enough to swallow that tale, but I could see that he meant it.

Trying to explain it to us cooled him off. “Look here,” he said, in too reasonable a tone for a feverish man, “perhaps we can get at the truth from your side. Has there been no war you know of? Nothing which—well, look here. My country’s men first came to Iceland to guard it against the Germans…now it is the Russians, but then it was the Germans. When was that?”

Helgi shook his head. “That never happened that I know of,” he said. “Who are these Russians?” He found out later that Gardariki was meant. “Unless,” he said, “the old warlocks—”

“He means the Irish monks,” I explained. “There were a few living here when the Norsemen came, but they were driven out. That was, hm, somewhat over a hundred years ago, Did your folk ever help the monks?”