There are no better shipwrights than the Norsemen, and we Saxons have forgotten the craft.
The terrible numbness passed off as I worked, but now the wind grew cold, and the clouds were working up from the southwest quickly, with wind overhead that was not felt here yet.

I knew that I must make some haven soon, or it was likely that I should be frozen on the sea, but the great cliffs were like walls, and at their feet was a fringe of angry foam everywhere.

I could see no hope as yet.
Far away to the east of me a great headland seemed to bar my way, but I did not think that I should ever reach it.

And all the while I looked to see the black forms of men on the cliffs in the moonlight, but they did not come.

That was good at least.
Then at last my heart leapt, for I saw, as a turn of the cliffs opened out to me, another white beach with a cleft of the rocks running up from it, and I thought it best to take the chance it gave me, for I feared the blinding snow that would be here soon, and I felt that the sea was rising.