ship met the waves of that wider stretch of
water that Halfden had now crossed.

She pitched sharply, and there was a bright gleam of sunlight from
the great bell's polished sides, and then another--and the ship
listed over to starboard and a wave curled in foam over her
gunwale. Then she righted again quickly, and as though relieved of
some weight, yet when a heavier, crested roller came on her she
rose to it hardly at all, and it broke on board her. And at that
she sank like a stone, and I could hear the yell that her men gave
come down the wind to me.

Then all the water was dotted with men for a little, and the bright
red and white of her sail floated on the waves for a minute, and
then all that was left of her were the masthead and yard--and on
them a few men. The rest were gone, for they were in their mail,
and might not swim. Only a few yet clung to floating oars and the
like.

"Little have these heathen gained from Bosham," said the prior, and
his eyes flashed with triumph. "Wilfrith the holy has punished
their ill doing."

So, too, it seemed to me, and I thought to myself that the weight
of that awesome curse had indeed fallen on the robbers.

Yet I know that, as I watched the ship in her trouble, in my own
mind I had been going over what was amiss, as any seaman will,
without thought of powers above. And I thought that the sharp
pitching of the vessel had cast the great bell from amidships,
where I had seen the Danes place it unsecured, against the frail
gunwale, first to one side, and then, with greater force yet,
against the other; so that it burst open gunwale and planking
below, and already she was filling when the wave came and ended
all. For these swift viking ships are built to take no heavy cargo,
and planks and timbers are but bound together by roots and withies;
so that as one stands on the deck one may feel it give and spring
to the blow of a wave, and the ship is all the swifter. But though
the outer planking is closely riveted together with good iron, that
could not withstand the crashing weight of so great a bell when it
was thus flung against it.

However that may have been--and thus I surely think it was--Bosham
bell passed not into the power of the heathen, but destroyed them;
and it lies at the bottom of the deepest reach of the haven whence
the depth and swiftness of the tide will hardly let men bring it
again. So I suppose that, profaned by heathen hands, it may no
longer call me