d
broad, between the soft hills and forest-clad shores, and the water
was bright and clear as glass beneath our keel, so that I saw a
great silver salmon flash like an arrow past the ship as we held
on. There was a village at the head of the reach, and men swarmed
in it like angry bees round a hive's mouth. Only the long black ship,
which still pulled slowly away from us, and the fiercely-burning
fires on every hilltop spoilt the quiet of the place.

"Now it is a question whether the Irish or we take Heidrek," said
Hakon. "It is plain that his time has come, one way or the other.
On my word, I am almost in the mind to hail him and bid him yield
to us to save himself from these axes."

I believe that so Hakon would have done, but that the chance never
came. And that was the doing of Heidrek himself, or of his crew.
What madness of despair fell on those pirates I cannot say, but
Asbiorn has it that they went berserk as one man at the last, as
the wilder Vikings will, when the worst has to be faced.

The Irish swarmed at the upper end of this reach, as I have said,
and those who had dealt with the other ship were coming fast along
the shore to join them. There must have been five hundred of them
in all, if not more. The river beyond the broad reach narrowed
fast, and one could see by the broken water that there was no
passing upward any farther until the tide was at its height. But
before the village was a long sloping beach, on which lay two or
three shapeless black skin boats, as if it was a good landing place
with deep water up to the shore. Above the village, on the shoulder
of the near hill, was an earthwork, and some tents were pitched
within its ring. It was the gathering-place to which Dalfin had
gone this morning, and no doubt his father, Myrkiartan the King,
was there.

There came a hoarse roar across the water to us, which rose and
fell, and shaped itself into a song, so terrible that I saw Hakon's
men grow restless as they heard it. The pirates were singing their
war song for the last time.

Their ship swung round and headed for the village, and with all her
oars going, and the white foam flying from her bows, and boiling
round the oar blades, she charged the beach and hurled herself half
out of the water as she reached it.

Over her bows went her men with a shout. Before the Irish knew that
anything had happened, the last of the Danes were halfway up the
little beach, and were forming up into a close-