between the soft hills and forest-clad shores, and the water was bright and clear as glass beneath our keel, so that I saw a great silver salmon flash like an arrow past the ship as we held on.  There was a village at the head of the reach, and men swarmed in it like angry bees round a hive’s mouth.  Only the long black ship, which still pulled slowly away from us, and the fiercely-burning fires on every hilltop spoilt the quiet of the place.

“Now it is a question whether the Irish or we take Heidrek,” said Hakon.  “It is plain that his time has come, one way or the other.  On my word, I am almost in the mind to hail him and bid him yield to us to save himself from these axes.”

I believe that so Hakon would have done, but that the chance never came.  And that was the doing of Heidrek himself, or of his crew.  What madness of despair fell on those pirates I cannot say, but Asbiorn has it that they went berserk as one man at the last, as the wilder Vikings will, when the worst has to be faced.

The Irish swarmed at the upper end of this reach, as I have said, and those who had dealt with the other ship were coming fast along the shore to join them.  There must have been five hundred of them in all, if not more.  The river beyond the broad reach narrowed fast, and one could see by the broken water that there was no passing upward any farther until the tide was at its height.  But before the village was a long sloping beach, on which lay two or three shapeless black skin boats, as if it was a good landing place with deep water up to the shore.  Above the village, on the shoulder of the near hill, was an earthwork, and some tents were pitched within its ring.  It was the gathering-place to which Dalfin had gone this morning, and no doubt his father, Myrkiartan the King, was there.

There came a hoarse roar across the water to us, which rose and fell, and shaped itself into a song, so terrible that I saw Hakon’s men grow restless as they heard it.  The pirates were singing their war song for the last time.

Their ship swung round and headed for the village, and with all her oars going, and the white foam flying from her bows, and boiling round the oar blades, she charged the beach and hurled herself half out of the water as she reached it.

Over her bows went her men with a shout.  Before the Irish knew that anything had happened, the last of the Danes were halfway up the little beach, and were forming up into a close-locked wedge, which moved swiftly toward the village even as it grew into shape.

“What are they about?” asked men of one another as they watched, breathless, from our decks.

“They will try to win to yonder camp,” one said in answer, and that was likely, though what hope could lie in that none could say.

Now the wedge had reached the little green which was between the village and the shore.  Before it lay the road hillward, steep and rough, and that was full of Irish.