These were eerie cheerless days.

The thralls sweated in shifts at the oars, and the betterborn talked low among themselves, as if the air were full of ears.
"Ran is heating her ovens," said Leif, as he watched the warm fog mingle with the oarthresh.
On the fourth morning there came a break in the clouds, and the sight of a high hill gave Leif the clue for his reckoning.

The prows swung seaward, and the galleys steered for the broad ocean.

That afternoon there sprang up the north-east wind for which they had been waiting.
Sails were hoisted on the short masts, oars were shipped and lashed under the bulwarks, and the thralls clustered in the prows to rest their weary limbs and dice with knucklebones.

The spirits of all lightened, and there was loud talk in the sterns among the Bearsarks.