Then they busked them; and just when they were boun they see ships coming up to them.  And now a fight sprung up between them, and they fought long, and many men fell.  Gunnar slew many a man.  Hallgrim and his men leapt on board Gunnar’s ship, Gunnar turns to meet him, and Hallgrim thrust at him with his bill.  There was a boom athwart the ship, and Gunnar leapt nimbly back over it, Gunnar’s shield was just before the boom, and Hallgrim thrust his bill into it, and through it, and so on into the boom.  Gunnar cut at Hallgrim’s arm hard, and lamed the forearm, but the sword would not bite.  Then down fell the bill, and Gunnar seized the bill, and thrust Hallgrim through, and then sang a song—­

  Slain is he who spoiled the people,
  Lashing them with flashing steel: 
  Heard have I how Hallgrim’s magic
  Helm-rod forged in foreign land;
  All men know, of heart-strings doughty,
  How this bill hath come to me,
  Deft in fight, the wolf’s dear feeder. 
  Death alone us two shall part.

And that vow Gunnar kept, in that he bore the bill while he lived.  Those namesakes [the two Kolskeggs] fought together, and it was a near thing which would get the better of it.  Then Gunnar came up, and gave the other Kolskegg his death-blow.  After that the sea-rovers begged for mercy.  Gunnar let them have that choice, and he let them also count the slain, and take the goods which the dead men owned, but he gave the others whom he spared their arms and their clothing, and bade them be off to the lands that fostered them.  So they went off and Gunnar took all the goods that were left behind.

Tofi came to Gunnar after the battle, and offered to lead him to that store of goods which the sea-rovers had stowed away, and said that it was both better and larger than that which they had already got.

Gunnar said he was willing to go, and so he went ashore, and Tofi before him, to a wood, and Gunnar behind him.  They came to a place where a great heap of wood was piled together.  Tofi says the goods were under there, then they tossed off the wood, and found under it both gold and silver, clothes and good weapons.  They bore those goods to the ships, and Gunnar asks Tofi in what way he wished him to repay him.

Tofi answered, “I am a Dansk man by race, and I wish thou wouldst bring me to my kinsfolk”.

Gunnar asks why he was there away east?

“I was taken by sea-rovers,” says Tofi, “and they put me on land here in Osel, and here I have been ever since.”

CHAPTER XXXI.

GUNNAR GOES TO KING HAROLD GORM’S SON AND EARL HACON.

Gunnar took Tofi on board, and said to Kolskegg and Hallvard, “Now we will hold our course for the north lands”.