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Updated: June 5, 2025
They dropped to where the curve of our deck was lowest, and instantly the leader leapt on board and all but one of his men followed, axe or drawn sword in hand. As I had bidden them, not one of my men stirred save Kenulf, who made fast the line and stood watching.
Then with the turn of tide came little flaws of wind, and we hoisted the sail, and Kenulf hove the anchor short. Yet we heard no more sounds from the other ship. Then all in a minute the fog thinned, lifted, and cleared away, and I saw the most beautiful sight my eyes had ever lighted on, and the most terrible.
Kenulf and I breathed more freely then, and we too went forward and ate and drank, and afterwards spoke of the chance of slipping away when the tide turned, though I was sure that, if the ship were what we thought, she would up anchor and drift with us. So the hours of flood tide passed, and then the ship began to swing idly as the slack came.
"No matter," said I, "they know we are not far off, for I think they must have anchored when they heard us do so, as we heard them. If they seek us they will soon find us." "They are coming nearer," said Kenulf, and I heard the oars more plainly yet.
Now I have said that old Kenulf had misliked the look of the weather, and now Thormod seemed uneasy. Yet the breeze came fresh from the southeast; and though it had shifted a good deal, I, for my part, thought little ill of that, for it held in that quarter till we were fairly among the sands of the Thames mouth at nightfall, and Kenulf lit lanterns by which we might follow him.
But old Kenulf cried out on the man, saying: "Rather is it one of the holy saints, and maybe the blessed Peter the fisherman himself," and he bared his gray head, crossing himself, as he looked eagerly to catch sight of the glory of light round the seafarer; and that rebuked my fears a little. But squall or crown of light was there none.
This is what comes into my mind of all that happened aye, and at night, when the wind roars round the house, I see it all again, waking in my dreams as I call to Kenulf. One flash of lightning showed me my ship dismasted and helpless, drifting broadside on to a sand over which the waves broke white and angry, and when the next flash came she was gone!
The leader was a young man, of about my own age, clad in golden shining bronze scale armour and wearing a silver helm on which were short, black, curving horns; and he bore a double-headed axe, besides the sword at his side. He looked round on us at the men standing silent, at Kenulf, and at me as I stood on the after deck resting on the tiller, and broke into a great laugh.
Nor did he blame me at all, knowing that Kenulf was in truth the commander of our ship. Rather was he glad that it had chanced that I had left her and so was safe. Then when I told him of my turning viking thereafter, he laughed grimly, with a glitter of his eye, saying that he would surely have done the same at my age aye, and any young man in all England likewise, were he worth aught.
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