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260 It was a valiant fight, and all day long Thamb sang and sang, and for every note he sent across the water, a Dane lay dead between the head and the tail of the Visund viking ship.”

“Aye, my King—a right valiant fight. I remember it well. Dost thou remember too—” the archer’s eyes were sparkling a keen blue light like finely tempered steel, and his hand still fondling the unheard notes of his bow—“how Thamb sped an arrow straight at the bison’s head that stood at the prow of the Danes’ ship, and the arrow pierced the bison’s eye? Then I quickly sent after it a mate to pierce the other eye.”

“True! true!” replied Olaf, “I remember it full well.” The king’s face was clearer, his voice happier, and his manner brighter than they had been since Gudrun’s cruel blow.

“Well, Einar, what are the vikings doing now at sea?”

“The most of them, my King, are going down to harass the Angles and the Scoti, but one of them, a bold viking he is, cleaves close to thy own shores. He is called Raud the Strong. All the south coast of Norway must pay him tribute, and his ships are the largest and the swiftest that have ever sailed the North Sea.”

“Larger and swifter than the ‘Alruna?’” Olaf demanded anxiously.

“Aye, my King, the largest and swiftest we have