He paid no heed to me, however, but looked long at the ship that lay astern of ours--one of the captured Danes.

Thord had set a gang of shore folk to bend the sail afresh to a new yard, for the old one had been strained in the gale that came before the fight.
"What are those men doing, friend ?" he asked Kolgrim directly.
"Bending a sail," answered my comrade listlessly, trusting, as it would seem, to the sea language for puzzlement enough to the landsman.
"So," said the Saxon, quite quietly.

"It was in my mind that when a sail was bent to the yard it was bent with the luff to the fore end thereof." At which words Kolgrim started, in a way, and looked first at the riggers and then back at the Saxon, who moved no muscle of his face, though one might see that his eyes twinkled.

And I looked at the riggers also, and saw that the Saxon was right, and that the men had the square-cut sail turned over with the leech forward and the luff aft.

The sail was half laced to the yard, and none but a man who knew much of ships would have seen that aught was wrong.
Then Kolgrim's face was so red, and angry, and full of shame all at once, that I had the best laugh at him that had come to me for many a day.