As it fell out, we of Olaf's eight ships lay below the rest, and
must have passed them to reach the bridge. All we might do,
therefore, was to close up to the sterns of the vessels that were
leading, and wait to send our men across their decks when the time
came. That pleased not Olaf at first, for he thought that his turn
had come; but in the end it was well for us.

Now the ships slipped their cables, and drifted up to the bridge
steadily, with a few oars going aft to guide them, and as they came
the Danes crowded above them, manning their towers and lining the
whole long length with savage faces and gleaming weapons. They
howled at us as we drew near, and as the bows of the leading ships
almost touched the piles, they hove grappling irons into them from
above, holding them fast. Whereat Eadmund thanked them for saving
trouble, while the arrows fell round him like hail.

But in a moment that word of his was changed, for now fell from
towers and bulwarks a fearsome rain of heavy darts and javelins,
and the men fell back from the crowded fore decks to seek safety
aft until the store of weapons was spent. Truly, there must have
been sheaves of throwing weapons piled ready on the roadway of the
bridge.

Then Eadmund's voice cried:

"Steady, men--this cannot last!"

And even as they heard him the warriors swarmed back across the
corpse-cumbered decks, and began to climb up the piles, for the