Only a few yet clung to floating oars and the like.
"Little have these heathen gained from Bosham," said the prior, and his eyes flashed with triumph.

"Wilfrith the holy has punished their ill doing." So, too, it seemed to me, and I thought to myself that the weight of that awesome curse had indeed fallen on the robbers.
Yet I know that, as I watched the ship in her trouble, in my own mind I had been going over what was amiss, as any seaman will, without thought of powers above.

And I thought that the sharp pitching of the vessel had cast the great bell from amidships, where I had seen the Danes place it unsecured, against the frail gunwale, first to one side, and then, with greater force yet, against the other; so that it burst open gunwale and planking below, and already she was filling when the wave came and ended all.

For these swift viking ships are built to take no heavy cargo, and planks and timbers are but bound together by roots and withies; so that as one stands on the deck one may feel it give and spring to the blow of a wave, and the ship is all the swifter.

But though the outer planking is closely riveted together with good iron, that could not withstand the crashing weight of so great a bell when it was thus flung against it.
However that may have been--and thus I surely think it was--Bosham bell passed not into the power of the heathen, but destroyed them; and it lies at the bottom of the deepest reach of the haven whence the depth and swiftness of the tide will hardly let men bring it again.