Tordenskjold saw that if he could capture or destroy this fleet Norway was saved; the siege must perforce be abandoned.  And Norway was his native land, which he loved with his whole fervid soul.  But no time was to be lost.  He could not go back to ask for permission, and one may shrewdly guess that he did not want to, for it would certainly have been refused.  He heard that the Swedish officers, secure in their stronghold, were to attend a wedding on shore the next day.  His instructions from the Admiralty were:  in an emergency always to hold a council of war, and to abide by its decision.  At daybreak he ran his ship alongside Vindhunden, her companion frigate, and called to the captain: 

“The Swedish officers are bidden to a wedding, and they have forgotten us.  What do you say—­shall we go unasked?”

Captain Grip was game.  “Good enough!” he shouted back.  “The wind is fair, and we have all day.  I am ready.”

That was the council of war and its decision.  Tordenskjold gave the signal to clear for action, and sailed in at the head of his handful of ships.

The inlet to the harbor of Dynekilen is narrow and crooked, winding between reefs and rocky steeps quite two miles, and only in spots more than four hundred feet wide.  Halfway in was a strong battery.  Tordenskjold’s fleet was received with a tremendous fire from all the Swedish ships, from the battery, and from an army of four thousand soldiers lying along shore.  The Danish ships made no reply.  They sailed up grimly silent till they reached a place wide enough to let them wear round, broadside on.  Then their guns spoke.  Three hours the battle raged before the Swedish fire began to slacken.  As soon as he noticed it, Tordenskjold slipped into the inner harbor under cover of the heavy pall of smoke, and before the Swedes suspected their presence they found his ships alongside.  Broadside after broadside crashed into them, and in terror they fled, soldiers and sailors alike.  While they ran Tordenskjold swooped down upon the half-way battery, seized it, and spiked its guns.  The fight was won.

But the heaviest part was left—­the towing out of the captured ships.  All the afternoon Tordenskjold led the work in person, pulling on ropes, cheering on his men.  The Swedes, returning gamely to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore.  One of the abandoned vessels caught fire.  Lieutenant Toender, of Tordenskjold’s staff, a veteran with a wooden leg, boarded it just as the quartermaster ran up yelling that the ship was full of powder and was going to blow up.  He tried to jump overboard, but the lieutenant seized him by the collar and, stumping along, made him lead the way to the magazine.  A fuse had been laid to an open keg of powder, and the fire was sputtering within an inch of it when Lieutenant Toender plucked it out, smothered it between thumb and forefinger, and threw it through the nearest port-hole.  There were two hundred barrels of powder in the ship.