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 bridge, and every Dane thereon will crowd into the centre to see the breaking of King Olaf’s ships, and their weight will help us.  We will go so far under the bridge that we may make fast our cables to the piles, and then will row hard down the falling tide at its swiftest.  Whereupon the laugh will be on our side instead of with the Danes, as yesterday.”

After that he bade us all sleep, for we had some long hours to wait for the falling tide when all was done.  And we did so, after a good meal, as well as we could, while the wains yet brought stones, and arrows and darts in sheaves to the bridge.  But forward in our ships the men were coiling the great cables that should, we hoped, bring the bridge and stones alike down harmlessly to us.