hang the bairns you catch. Little need have you to do aught save
look at them. Here is a gift for you," and with that he hurled a
spear with so true an aim that, if Osmund had not stooped like a
flash, his share in the fight would have come to an end there and
then. As it was, the missile struck another man between the
shoulders and laid him on the deck.

"Forward! forward!" cried Liot. "Forward, Vikings! forward, the
men of Liot and Osmund!"

The oars struck the water, the wild chorus swelled into a terrible
and tuneless roar, and the ten ships bore down on the two. With a
crash the bows met, and metal rang on metal with the noise of a
hundred smithies; the unequal contest had begun.

Overpowering as such odds could hardly fail to prove in the long
run, they told more slowly in a sea-fight. Till the men who manned
the bulwarks were thinned, the sides were practically equal, and
at first many of the Orkney Vikings were perforce mere spectators.

Gradually, as the men in front were thinned, they poured in from
the other ships, fresh men always being pitted against tired, and
keen swords meeting hacked.

Liot laid his own ship alongside Estein's, Osmund attacked
Thorkel's, and the other vessels forced their bows forward
wherever they saw an opening. The Norwegians manned their bulwarks
shield to shield, and fought with the courage of despair. Twice
Liot, backed by his boldest men, tried by a headlong rush to force
himself on board, and twice he was beaten back. A third time he