undering nearer, and my
head reeled with its noise and terror till I knew not what I was
doing, and let go my hold of Olaf's stirrup.
Then it broke over bridge and causeway, and through its roar I
heard yells, and the crash of broken timber, before I lost all
knowledge of aught but that I was lost in that mighty wave, and was
being whirled like a straw before it, where it would take me.
I struck out wildly as if to swim--but of what avail was that
against the weight of rushing water? I seemed to be rolled over and
against broken timber and reeds and stones--and once my hand
touched a man, for I felt it grate over the scales of armour--and
my ears were full of roarings and strange sounds, and I thought
that I was surely lost.
Then a strong grip was on me, and the water flew past me, and
hurled things at me, for I no longer went with it. My feet touched
ground, and other hands held me, and then I was ashore, and spent
almost nigh to death. Well for me it was that in the old days by
the Stour river I had loved to swim and dive in the deep pool
behind the island, for I had learned to save my breath. Had I not
done so, the choking of the great wave had surely ended my days.
It was Olaf who had saved me. Almost had we won to the high ground
when I had let go his stirrup leather, and then the shoreward edge
of the wave had caught me. But he had faced its fury as he saw me
borne away, and had snatched me from it as it tossed me near the
bank again. Now he bent over me, trying to catch the sound of my
voice through the roar of the storm and the rush of the flood below
us. But I could not speak to him though I would, and it was not all
drowning that ailed me, for the blow which had felled me in the
fight was even now beginning to do its work. Else had I clung to
him all along, and had been safe as he was. For he won to shore ten
yards beyond its reach as the wave came.
Now I know that Olaf and our men carried me into a place under the
lee of a hill, and bided there till the gale blew over. There was a
sharp pain as of a piercing weapon in my side as they did so, and
after that I knew not much of being carried on to the house of
Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, along a forest road where travelling
was no easier for the fallen trees that lay across it. And after I
was there I knew nothing. The blow I had had took its effect on me,
and I had several ribs broken by some timber that smote me amid the
tossing of the great wave
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