far as I am
concerned. But if you hinder me, die you must in one way or
another!"

Now he saw well enough that his only hope lay in my power to take
the boat safely across the water, and so promised humbly to obey me
in all things if I would but spare him and get the boat to shore
quickly. So I unbound him and coiled the rope at my feet again,
bidding him lie down amidships and be still.

Many a time men have asked me why I slew him not, or cast him not
overboard, thus being troubled no more with him. Most surely I
would have slain him when we fought, in the white heat of
anger--and well would it have been if Ulfkytel had doomed him to
death, as judge. But against this helpless, cringing wretch, whose
punishment was even now falling on him, how could I lift hand? It
seemed to me, moreover, that I was, as it were, watching to see
when the stroke of doom would fall on him, as the earl said it
surely must on the guilty.

The wind freshened, and the boat began to sing through the water,
for it needed little to drive her well. My spirits rose, so that I
felt almost glad to be on the sea again, but Beorn waxed sick and
lay groaning till he was worn out and fell asleep.

Now the breeze blew from the southwest, warm and damp, as it had
held for a long time during this winter, which was open and mild so
far. And this was driving us over the same track which Lodbrok had
taken as he came from his own place. There was no hope of making
the English shore again, and so I thought it well to do even as the
jarl, and rear up the floorboards in such wise as to use them for a
sail to hasten us wherever we might go.

So I roused Beorn, and showed him how to bestow himself out of my
way, and made sail, as one might say. At once the boat seemed to
come to life, flying from wave to wave before the wind, and I made
haste to ship the long oar, so that I could steer her with it.

And when I went aft, there, in the sharp hollow of the stern that I
had uncovered, lay two great loaves and a little breaker of water.
Now I could not tell, and do not know even to this day, what kindly
man hid these things for us, but I blessed him for his charity, for
now our case was better than Lodbrok's in two ways, that we had no
raging gale and sea to wrestle against, and the utmost pangs of
hunger and thirst we were not to feel. Three days and two nights
had he been on his voyage. We might be a day longer with this
breeze, but the bread, at least, we ne