Asbiorn yonder commanded this." "Asbiorn is in luck today," Earl Osric said, nodding toward those terrible decks.
But Asbiorn stood on the foredeck with his back to that which he had looked on, biting the ends of his long moustache, and pale with rage.

I did not wonder thereat.
Now Osric hailed the other ship and bade her anchor in the stream while we went on.

The pilot said that we could safely do so, and that the next reach was the one of which he had spoken as a trap.
Then his comrade went into the bows with a long pole, sounding, and so we crept past the stranded vessel, and into the most lovely reach of river I had ever seen.

It was well nigh a lake, long and broad, between the soft hills and forest-clad shores, and the water was bright and clear as glass beneath our keel, so that I saw a great silver salmon flash like an arrow past the ship as we held on.

There was a village at the head of the reach, and men swarmed in it like angry bees round a hive's mouth.