Warily he sounded, till suddenly out of the gloom a spit of land rose on
the port, and it was clear that they were entering the mouth of a river.
The six galleys jolted across the sandbar, Leif in the foremost peering
ahead and shouting every now and then an order. It was fine weather for a
surprise landing. Biorn saw only low sand-dunes green with coarse grasses
and, somewhere behind, the darkness of a forest. But he could not tear his
eyes from it, for it was the long-dreamed-of Roman land.

Then a strange thing befell. A madness seemed to come on Leif. He left his
pilot's stand and rushed to the stern where the King stood. Flinging
himself on his knees, he clasped Ironbeard's legs and poured out
supplications.

"Return!" he cried. "While there is yet time, return. Seek England,
Gael-land, anywhere, but not this place. I see blood in the stream and
blood on the strand. Our blood, your blood, my King! There is doom for the
folk of Thorwald by this river!"

The King's face did not change. "What will be, will be," he said gravely.
"We abide by our purpose and will take what Thor sends with a stout heart.
How say you, my brave ones?"

And all shouted to go forward, for the sight of a new country had fired
their blood. Leif sat huddled by the bulwarks, with a white face and a gasp
in his throat, like one coming out of a swoon.

They went ashore at a bend of the stream where was a sandy cape, beached
the galleys, felled trees from the neighbouring forest and built them a
stockade. The dying sun flushed water and wood with angry crimson, and
Biorn observed that the men wrought as it were in a world of blood. "That