Then they all went hastily on board, and put out into the haven, down which Halfden's ship was already a mile distant, and dancing on the quick waves of wind against tide where the waters broadened into a wide lake.
Now when the ship was fairly under way, the prior rose up from beside me, and lifting his hand, cursed ship and crew with so great and bitter a curse that I trembled and looked to see the ship founder at once, so terrible were his words.
Yet the ship held on her course, and the words seemed vain and wasted, though I know not so certainly that they were so.

For this is what I saw when the ship met the waves of that wider stretch of water that Halfden had now crossed.
She pitched sharply, and there was a bright gleam of sunlight from the great bell's polished sides, and then another--and the ship listed over to starboard and a wave curled in foam over her gunwale.

Then she righted again quickly, and as though relieved of some weight, yet when a heavier, crested roller came on her she rose to it hardly at all, and it broke on board her.

And at that she sank like a stone, and I could hear the yell that her men gave come down the wind to me.
Then all the water was dotted with men for a little, and the bright red and white of her sail floated on the waves for a minute, and then all that was left of her were the masthead and yard--and on them a few men.

The rest were gone, for they were in their mail, and might not swim.