ars ago?"

"I have not heard," I said.

"Why, seeing that we might not go out by the way in which we came,
Olaf made us dig a new channel, and we went out by that, laughing.
We all had to dig for our lives, grumbling, but we got away."

Now Olaf looked up and saw us, and his face was bright again.

"I am going to see Ethelred," he said, "for I think that I can take
the bridge."

A boat shot alongside even as he spoke, and a thane came to bid
Olaf to a council of the leaders on Ethelred's ship. So Olaf went
with him, and was long away. The tide was almost low, and darkness
had fallen before he came back in high spirits.

"Ethelred was sorely downcast, even to weeping," he told us, "and
so had almost given up hope of taking London. He thought of sailing
away and landing elsewhere. Then I said that I would take the
bridge tomorrow if I had help in what I needed tonight."

Then he looked round on us, and what he saw in our faces made him
laugh a little.

"It seems to me that you are over fearful of stone throwing after
the Danish sort," he said. "Had I not a plan that will save our
heads and the ship's timbers alike, I would not go. I am not the
man to risk both for nought. We will build roofs over the fore
decks and try again."

Then Rani growled:

"How are we to climb out from under your roofs so as to get upon
the bridge? We have already seen that ladders are needed for that
also."

"Nay," said Olaf, "we will bring the bridge down to us," and so he
went forward laughing to find his shipwrights.

So all that night long we wrought as he bade us, and Ethelred's men
came with spars and timber from houses they pulled down ashore, and
when morning broke we had on each ship the framework of a strong,
high-pitched roof that covered the vessels from stem to midships or
more, and stretched out beyond the gunwales on either board.

Then the men who wrought ashore brought us boatloads of strong
hurdles and the sides and roofs of the wattled huts of the
Southwark thralls, and with them all our wooden shelters were
covered so strongly that, if they might not altogether stand the
weight of the greatest stones, these roofs would break their fall
and save the ships.

When all this was finished, King Olaf told us what his plan was. We
were not to try to storm the bridge, but were to break it.

"See," he said, "all night long the wagons that brought more stones
have been rumbling and rattling into the middle of the bri