There was no firm hold for them.
That made the Danes think that we were driven off, and their yells began afresh.
Then came a quick word from Olaf, and the oars took the water to ease the sharp check as the length of the cables was reached, while the ship astern of us swung to her tow line.

The king glanced to right and left of him, and saw that the other three ships had fared as well as we, and that they too were dropping down from the bridge.
How the Danes roared and howled with joy, thinking that we were all in full retreat! Yet, as the last ship tightened her cable, I saw the jerk shake one of them from his perch on the bridge bulwarks and send him headlong into the water.
Olaf saw it, and raised his hand and shouted.

And with one accord the oars of the eight great ships smote the water, and bent, and tore the waves into foam--and London Bridge was broken! The memory of that sight will never pass from my mind or from the mind of any man of us who saw all that the lifted hand and shout of Olaf the king brought about.
There was a slow groaning of timbers and a cracking, and then a dead silence.

Then the silence was broken by a wild yell of terror from the swarming Danes, and ere they could fly from the crowded towers and roadway where the bridge was steepest, the whole length of three spans bent and swayed towards us, and a wide gap sprang open across the roadway.

Into that gap crumbled a great stone-laden tower, and men like bees from a shaken swarm.