who had been accustomed to the clear lights and the clear darkness of his
own land. Only once in four days they saw the sun, and then it was as red
as blood, so that his heart trembled.

On the eleventh day Ironbeard summoned Leif and asked his skill of the
voyage. "I know not," was the answer. "I cannot steer a course except under
clean skies. We ran well with the wind aback, but now I am blind and the
Gods are pilots. Some day soon we must make landfall, but I know not
whether on English or Frankish shores."

After that Leif would sit in long spells of brooding, for he had a sense in
him of direction to which he sought to give free play--a sense built up
from old voyages over these very seas. The result of his meditations was
that he swung more to the south, and events proved him wise. For on the
fifteenth day came a lift in the fog and with it the noise of tides washing
near at hand on a rough coast. Suddenly almost overhead they were aware of
a great white headland, on the summit of which the sun shone on grass.

Leif gave a shout. "My skill has riot failed me," he cried. "We enter the
Frankish firth. See, there is the butt of England!"

After that the helms were swung round, and a course laid south by west. And
then the mist came again, but this time it was less of a shroud, for birds
hovered about their wake, so that they were always conscious of land.
Because of the strength of the tides the rowers made slow progress, and it
was not till the late afternoon of the seventeenth day that Leif approached
Ironbeard with a proud head and spoke a word. The King nodded, and Leif
took his stand in the prow with the lead in his hand. The sea mirroring the
mist was leaden dull, but the old pilot smelt shoal water.