against the spray, Halfden's voice came, crying, as he gripped my
arm:

"By Odin--it is well that I kept you here!"

And Thormod from the helm shouted to his men to stand by the sheet,
and the helm went down, and the ship drove through the seas that
broke clean over her as he saw the danger in time to stand away
from it, heading her as free as he dared.

Naught of this I heeded, for I could think but of the stout sailor
men with whom I had been brought up, and of whom I knew only too
surely that I should see them not again. And for them I tried to
pray, for it was all that I could do, and it seemed so little--yet
who knows what help may come therefrom?

Now the longship fought alone with the storm. Hard was the fight,
but I, who was willing to die with my own people who had gone
before my eyes, cared nothing for whether we won through the gale
or not. But Thormod called to me, bidding me pilot them as best I
might, and so I was taken a little from my thoughts. Yet can I take
no praise to myself that, when the gale slackened, we were safe and
beyond the dangers of the shoals.

We were far down channel when morning broke, and on either bow were
white cliffs, plain to be seen in the clear light that came after
the short fury of the gale was spent. Never had I thought that a
ship could sail so wondrously as this of Halfden's, and yet I took
no pleasure therein, because of all that I had lost. And it seemed
to me that now I knew from my own chance why it was that Lodbrok