hat should be next. No other ship had
come to help our prey.

Then I saw a wonderful sight. Panic terror had fallen on the Danes,
and not one ship of all that great fleet was not flying down the
wind without thought of fighting. Among them went our vessels,
great and small, each doing her work well; and the Saxon shouts
were full of victory.

So we must after them, and once more we boarded a longship, and had
the victory; and then we were off the haven mouth, and with the
flood tide the wind was coming up in gusts from the southeast that
seemed to bode angry weather. By that time no two Danish ships were
in company, and the tide was setting them out to sea.

"Here is a gale coming," said Kolgrim, looking at the sky and the
whitening wave crests. "We had best get our ships into this haven
while we can."

It seemed that Thord was of the same mind, for now he was heading
homeward, and the other Saxons were putting about and following
him. So I got men into the best of the ships we had taken, and
waited till Thord in Odda's ship led the way, and so followed into
Poole Harbour.

Well it was for us that we had refuge so handy. For by noonday the
gale was blowing from the southwest, and two Danish ships were
wrecked in trying to gain the harbour--preferring to yield to us
rather than face the sea, with a lee shore, rocky and hopeless,
waiting for them.

We went into the Poole inlet, which is on the eastern side of the
wide waters of the haven, and there found good berths enough. The
village was empty, save for a few Saxon fishermen, who hailed us
joyfully. And then Odda made for us as good a feast as he might in
the best house that was there, bidding every shipmaster to it.
Merry enough were all, though we had but ship fare; for the Saxons
had great hopes from this victory.

Now Odda made much of what I had done--though it was little
enough--saying that I and my men deserved well of Alfred, and that
he hoped that we should stay with him for this winter, which would
perhaps see the end of the war.

"Why," said I, "things would have been much the same if I had not
been here."

"That they would not," he answered. "I should have blundered past
this place in the night, and so lost the Danes altogether; or if I
had not done that, they would soon have found out what state my men
were in. You should have heard old Thord rate them into order; it
is in my mind that he even called me--Odda the ealdorman--hard
names in his