en back the torque which was lost.

That was all they needed to hear, for the torque had been seen, and
word had passed round concerning it. The black looks faded, and
there was naught but friendliness thereafter. Phelim asked for some
leader, and a man stepped forward, and so took messages for Dalfin,
and went across the green and up the lane with its terrible token
of the fighting, that he might give them as soon as it was
possible. Then we rowed back slowly, for it was not worthwhile to
go ashore.

"Thanks," said Hakon, meeting us at the gangway. "That is well
done. I will own that we had nearly run ourselves into a trap, and
you have taken a load off my mind."

"No need to have stayed here," said Thoralf.

"Nay, but I want that ship, and now I think we may get her. I did
but stay to see if it might be done."

I went and found Asbiorn, for somewhat was troubling me. The
thought of the men who had been taken at the same time as myself,
and must needs be in one or other of these ships.

"We took seven in all," he said. "Well, I had five. Two got away in
Norway as soon as we fell out with Arnkel. One was too much hurt to
be of use, and we left him there. My father took the other two, and
they are yonder with him, I suppose. Those two who joined us of
their own free will were in my ship. They were good men."

Chapter 15: The Torque And Its Wearer.

The roar of that unseen battle came across the still water to us
without cease for well nigh half an hour. The first surety we had
that it was over was in the dying away of the noise and the coming
back to the shore of men from the front who were unwounded. After
that we could see the black mass of Irish climbing the hill to the
camp quietly, as if to tell their king that they had conquered.
There was much shouting thence shortly after they had passed within
the earthworks.

Then out of the gate of the camp, which was toward the river, came
a train of men, the leaders of which were mounted, and after them
swarmed the levies again. Dalfin was bringing his father to see the
place of the fight, and to welcome us as friends. It was not
altogether a new thing that Norseman and Dane should be known as
foes to one another here on the Irish coast, which both wasted. The
folk called us the "white" and the Danes the "black" Lochlannoch,
and I cannot say which they feared the most, though the Danes were
the most hated. But the Irish kings were not slow to take advantage