f us, but their oars were flashing in the sun as they made after
us.

Then I looked northward for England, but there was only the sea's
rim, and over that a bank of white summer clouds. Under the sun, to
the south, was a long blue line of hills whose shapes were strange
to me, and that was the Frankish shore. We were far across the
Channel, and still heading eastward.

"Thrond," I said, "are you after that ship yonder?"

"Ay. She will be a Frankish trader going home, and worth
overhauling. Maybe there will be no fight, however; but one never
knows."

Now it was in my mind to ask him what would be done with me, but I
did not. That was perhaps a matter which must be settled hereafter,
and not on the eve of a fight at sea. Moreover, I thought that a
Frankish ship was fair game for any one, and that if I were needed
there was no reason at all why I should not take a hand in the
fight. Certainly I should fare no worse for taking my plight in the
best way I could. So I held my tongue and went on eating.

One or two of the men looked up from the oars and grinned at me,
and of these one had a black eye, being the man I had knocked off
the deck. It was plain that he bore no malice, so I smiled back at
him, and lifted the jug of ale toward him as I drank. He was a
pleasant-looking man enough, now that the savagery of battle had
passed from him.

Now I would have it remembered that a Saxon lad reared on the west
Welsh marches is not apt to think much of a cattle raid and the
fighting that ends it, and that with these Danes, who were so like
ourselves, we had as yet no enmity. It seemed to me that being in
strange company I must even fit myself to it, and all was wonderful
to me in the sight of the splendid ship and her well-armed,
well-ordered crew. Maybe, had we not been speeding to a fight the
like of which I had never so much as heard of, I should have
thought of home and the fears of those who would hear that I was
gone; but as things were, how could I think of aught but what was
on hand?

We were nearing the vessel fast, and seeing that she did not turn
her head and fly, old Thrond growled that there was some fight in
her.

"Unless," he added with a hard chuckle, "they have never so much as
heard of a viking. Are there pirates in this sea, lad?"

"They say that the seamen from the southern lands are, betimes. I
have heard of ships taken by swarthy men thence. The Cornish tin
merchants tell the tales of them."