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I looked again at him, and I saw that since last I turned my eyes on him he had grown pale, and now his face was drawn, and was whitening under some pain, as it would seem; and I gripped Odda's arm. "See!" I said, "the king dies! he is poisoned!" And I was starting up, but the ealdorman held me back. "I pray you pay no heed," he said urgently. "It is the king's dark hour; he will be well anon."
Odda's crashed upon and sank the first she met, and plunged and shook herself free from the wreck, and sought another. And beyond her the same was being wrought; and cheers and cries were strangely mixed where those high bows went forward unfaltering. Now a ship crowded with men was before me.
Sometimes a thane would stay and speak with me from the wharf alongside which my own ship was with one or two others, and they were pleasant enough, though they troubled me with over many thanks, which was Odda's fault. However, I will say this, that if every man made as little of his own doings and as much of those of his friends as did the honest ealdorman, it were well in some ways.
So I got men into the best of the ships we had taken, and waited till Thord in Odda's ship led the way, and so followed into Poole Harbour. Well it was for us that we had refuge so handy.
"Nevertheless, I do not give up without fighting for the rest of my ship that you have not won." "That is well said," I answered. But the men were laughing, for Kolgrim had stooped, and, reaching under an oar bench, had dragged out a rower by the neck. The man swore and struggled; but Kolgrim hove him up, and lifted him over the yard to Odda's feet.
Now in the seven weeks that we waited for Guthrum at Aller, while the priests whom Alfred sent taught him and his chiefs what they should know rightly before baptism, Osmund and I were wont to go to Taunton, across the well-known fens, and bide for days at a time in Odda's house there, and we told Thora for what we waited.
Then I said to old Thord, who sat over against me beyond Odda's empty chair: "This is foolishness; or will he not honour the king's guests?" But a thane shook his head at me, whispering behind his hand: "It is humbleness. He has put his rank from him, and will not be held as being above any man."
Then went back to our ship, all but Thord and half a dozen warriors, whom he kept as guard for me, I suppose; and the grappling lines were cast off. Then we made sail again, and headed to rejoin the rest of the Saxon vessels. Odda's crippled ship had repaired her damage at this time, and went with us.
But I will say this, that among all the fair ladies of the queen's household there was none of whom I thought at all; while of what Thora would say I thought often, and it pleased me that the Lady Etheldreda, Odda's fair eldest daughter, took pity on the lonely maiden, and made much of her after a time.
Then I got my ships into line abreast, and Thord worked up Odda's five alongside us to seaward; and all the while the Danish sails hove into sight in no sort of order, and seeming so sure that none but friends could be afloat that they paid no heed to us. Soon there were full a hundred vessels of all sorts off Swanage point, and the cutter brought word that there were but twenty more.
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