in full retreat! Yet, as the last ship tightened her cable, I saw
the jerk shake one of them from his perch on the bridge bulwarks
and send him headlong into the water.

Olaf saw it, and raised his hand and shouted. And with one accord
the oars of the eight great ships smote the water, and bent, and
tore the waves into foam--and London Bridge was broken!

The memory of that sight will never pass from my mind or from the
mind of any man of us who saw all that the lifted hand and shout of
Olaf the king brought about.

There was a slow groaning of timbers and a cracking, and then a
dead silence. Then the silence was broken by a wild yell of terror
from the swarming Danes, and ere they could fly from the crowded
towers and roadway where the bridge was steepest, the whole length
of three spans bent and swayed towards us, and a wide gap sprang
open across the roadway. Into that gap crumbled a great stone-laden
tower, and men like bees from a shaken swarm. And then those three
spans seemed to melt away with a great rush and roar, and howl of
men in mortal terror--and down the freed tide swept our ships,
dragging after them the timbers that the cables yet held.

Then into the Southwark fortress went Eadmund and his men like
fire, while from the London side of the river came the roar of a
fight, as the citizens fell on the Danes who were fleeing terror
smitten from the weakened spans that were left of London Bridge.

Then Olaf swung our ships to either bank, and past us went in
confusion, on the rush of pent-up water, the great timbers and