aft. So my boyish dreams were like to come to pass, for I was thus
a viking indeed. Yet I had little pride therein.

Thence we raided ever eastward and westward along that shore, and I
grew to love Halfden well, strange as were his wild ways to me. For
he was in all things most generous; nor was he cruel, but would
hold back the more savage of the men when he could--though, indeed,
that was seldom--when they were mad with fighting.

So the weeks went on, until at last one day as we left a haven
where we had bided for a while, taking ransom from the town that we
might leave it in peace, we spied a sail far off coming from
eastward, and Thormod would have us bear up for her, to see what
she might be. But instead of flying, as a trading ship would, the
strange vessel waited for us, lowering her sail and clearing for
action, so that there was doubt if she was not Norse. Now between
Dane and Northman is little love lost, though at times they have
joined hands, loosely as one might say, or as if cat and dog should
go together to raid a rabbit warren.

"If she be Norse," said Halfden, and his eyes shone, "we will fight
her, and that will be a fight worth telling of by the crew that is
left when we have done!"

But she turned out to be Danish, and a boat came from her to us.
She was on the same errand as ourselves, and, moreover, belonged to
one Rorik, who was a friend of Lodbrok's, so that again I must go
through all the story of his perils.

Now if Halfden's men had seemed rough and ill-favoured to me when