Hard was the fight, but I, who was willing to die with my own people who had gone before my eyes, cared nothing for whether we won through the gale or not.

But Thormod called to me, bidding me pilot them as best I might, and so I was taken a little from my thoughts.

Yet can I take no praise to myself that, when the gale slackened, we were safe and beyond the dangers of the shoals.
We were far down channel when morning broke, and on either bow were white cliffs, plain to be seen in the clear light that came after the short fury of the gale was spent.

Never had I thought that a ship could sail so wondrously as this of Halfden's, and yet I took no pleasure therein, because of all that I had lost.

And it seemed to me that now I knew from my own chance why it was that Lodbrok could sing no song to us at that feasting, when we came home to Reedham; for surely my case was even as his.
So I thought, leaning on the gunwale and staring ever at the white cliffs of England on our starboard; and there Halfden found me, and came, putting his hand on my shoulder very kindly.
"Now if you have lost friends and ship by the common chances of the sea," he said, "surely you have found both anew.