With a gesture of despair Estein turned.

"Back, men, back! Thorkel needs all his friends, I fear," he
cried; and to Helgi he said, "The day is lost. We can but sell our
lives dearly now."

They came back too late. Already Thorkel's men were pouring on
board Estein's ship, with Osmund of the Hooknose at their heels.
Thorkel himself lay stark across the bulwarks, his face to his
foes, and a great spear-head standing out of his back.

It was now but a question of time. With a single ship, surrounded
on all sides, and weary with storm and battle, there could be only
one fate for Estein's diminished band. Nevertheless, they stood
their ground as stoutly and cheerfully as if the fray were just
beginning. Finding that all efforts to board were useless, the
Orkney Vikings confined themselves for some time to keeping up an
incessant fire of darts and stones. One by one the defenders
dropped at their posts, and at last, when widening gaps appeared
in the line of shields, Liot and Osmund boarded together, each
from his own side.

"Back to the poop, Helgi!" Estein cried. "To the poop, men! we
cannot hold the gangways. One tired man cannot fight with five
fresh."

Last of all his men, he stepped from the gangway that ran round
the low and open waist of the ship, up to the decked poop, his red
shield stuck with darts like a pincushion with pins.