nd at other times
I would sit on our little watch tower gazing over the northern sea,
and fearing ever when the white wing of a gull flashed against the
skyline that they were there. And at last, as I sat dreaming and
watching, one bright day, my heart gave a great leap, for far off
to the northward were the sails of what were surely the first ships
of the fleet.

I watched for a while, for it was ill giving a false alarm and
turning out our unwilling levies for naught, for each time they
came up it grew harder to keep them, and each time fewer came. In
an hour I knew that there were eight ships and no more, and that
they were heading south steadily, not as if intending to land in
the Wash, but as though they would pass on to other shores than
ours. And they were not Ingvar's fleet, for he alone had ten ships
in his ship garth.

They were broad off the mouth of our haven presently, and maybe
eight miles away, when one suddenly left the rest and bore up for
shore--sailing wonderfully with the wind on her starboard bow as
only a viking's ship can sail--for a trading vessel can make no way
to windward save she has a strong tide with her.

She came swiftly, and at last I knew my own ship again, and thought
that Halfden had come with news of peace, and maybe to take me to
sea with him, and so at last back to Osritha. And my heart beat
high with joy, for no other thought than that would come to me for
a while, and when she was but two miles off shore, I thought that I
would put out to meet and bring the ship into the haven; for he
knew not the sands, though indeed I had given him the course and
marks--well enough for a man like Thormod--when I was with him. And
there came over me a great longing to be once more on the
well-known deck with these rough comrades who had so well stood by
me.

But suddenly she paid off from the wind, running free again to the
southward down the coast, and edging away to rejoin the other
ships. And as she did so her broad pennon was run up and dipped
thrice, as in salute; and so she passed behind the headlands of the
southern coast and was lost to my sight.

I bided there in my place, downcast and wondering, until the
meaning of it all came to me; remembering Halfden's last words,
that he would not fall on East Anglia. Now he had shown me that his
promise was kept. He had left the fleet, and was taking his own way
with those who would follow him.

Yet if he had eight ships, what would Ing