He drowsed off. Gudorm sat a while gazing at him through the sunset light. It gave back a little gold to the king’s gray head.

When the battle was done, Tosti howled, “Who will ken Hadding?” Some of his troop had seen him in the past, and most had heard something about what so famous a man looked like. They grubbed through the fallen. As the search went by without gain, Tosti joined it, tossing bodies aside, grunting and snarling. He too found naught.

He straightened and glared. “Did he then get away?”

“I think not into the woods,” said Syfrid. “He led his men and was well-nigh out onto the strand when we attacked. Then he sprang from his horse and back to the fight. But the press was hard. Nobody could have hewed from there into the thick of it. The Danes who happened to be to the rear, they were the ones who had some opening for escape when they saw they were beaten.”

“Yet Hadding’s not here,” Tosti grated. “Unless he made off down the strand itself. Hr-r-r, if he slips from us, this day will not have seen our victory”

He asked about and cast about. A man or two recalled marking a pair who fled east along the water. Tosti bent low and scuttled around like a hound after spoor. “Ha!” he cried. “Footprints and bloodstains! After them!”

Men whooped. They pounded along for a few miles, topped the ridge, and saw their other ships, with three dead warriors lying under the prows. Tosti shaded his eyes and peered outward. The sun was nearly set, the dazzle off the water half blinded him, but it seemed that something yonder might be a boat. “Launch! There’s our whale! A pouchful of gold to the first who harpoons him!”

Hands gripped, backs bent, a ship rumbled down to the shallows and onward till she lay afloat. Men waded out and hauled themselves aboard. Oars rattled forth. The ship surged forward.

The sea welled up from below. It gurgled around the deck-boards, raised them, set them sloshing to and fro. The crew broke out buckets. They could not bail fast enough. Soon the craft wallowed awash.

Tosti shrieked his rage. There was nothing to do but creep back to shore. They found that all the hulls had been holed.

“We’ve more ships waiting!” Tosti shouted. “Be off!”

“If we run back all that way,” mumbled a Jute, “we’ll be dead tired.”

Tosti pulled Out his knife. “You’ll be dead now if you don’t come along,” he said. They trotted at his back as best they could.

Night fell. It was the light night of midsummer, dream blue, giving wide range to sight. A warm wind lulled.

Most of Tosti’s band had stayed behind, resting. He filled a ship from among these. Oars creaked, a bow wave purled, wake sheened, the vessel drove forward.