So I held my tongue and went on eating.
One or two of the men looked up from the oars and grinned at me, and of these one had a black eye, being the man I had knocked off the deck.

It was plain that he bore no malice, so I smiled back at him, and lifted the jug of ale toward him as I drank.

He was a pleasant-looking man enough, now that the savagery of battle had passed from him.
Now I would have it remembered that a Saxon lad reared on the west Welsh marches is not apt to think much of a cattle raid and the fighting that ends it, and that with these Danes, who were so like ourselves, we had as yet no enmity.

It seemed to me that being in strange company I must even fit myself to it, and all was wonderful to me in the sight of the splendid ship and her well-armed, well-ordered crew.

Maybe, had we not been speeding to a fight the like of which I had never so much as heard of, I should have thought of home and the fears of those who would hear that I was gone; but as things were, how could I think of aught but what was on hand?
We were nearing the vessel fast, and seeing that she did not turn her head and fly, old Thrond growled that there was some fight in her.
"Unless," he added with a hard chuckle, "they have never so much as heard of a viking.