‘Let us get our winds again before we start afresh!’
‘Wulf the Prince is like his name, and never tires; he has a winter-wolf’s legs under him; that is no reason why we should have.’
‘Haven’t you heard what the monk says?-we can never get ever those cataracts.’
‘We’ll stop his old wives’ tales for him, and then settle for ourselves,’ said Smid; and springing from the thwart where he had been sitting, he caught up a bill with one hand, and seized Philammon’s throat with the other.... in a moment more, it would have been all over with him....
For the first time in his life Philammon felt a hostile gripe upon him, and a new sensation rushed through every nerve, as he grappled with the warrior, clutched with his left hand the up-lifted wrist, and with his right the girdle, and commenced, without any definite aim, a fierce struggle, which, strange to say, as it went on, grew absolutely pleasant.
The women shrieked to their lovers to part the combatants, but in vain.
‘Not for worlds! A very fair match and a very fair fight! Take your long legs back, Itho, or they will be over you! That’s right, my Smid, don’t use the knife! They will be overboard in a moment! By all the Valkyrs, they are down, and Smid undermost!’
There was no doubt of it; and in another moment Philammon would have wrenched the bill out of his opponent’s hand, when, to the utter astonishment of the onlookers, he suddenly loosed his hold, shook himself free by one powerful wrench, and quietly retreated to his seat, conscience-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood which had suddenly boiled up within him as he felt his enemy under him.
The onlookers were struck dumb with astonishment; they had taken for granted that he would, as a matter of course, have used his right of splitting his vanquished opponent’s skull—an event which they would of course have deeply deplored, but with which, as men of honour, they could not on any account interfere, but merely console themselves for the loss of their comrade by flaying his conqueror alive, ‘carving him into the blood-eagle,’ or any other delicate ceremony which might serve as a vent for their sorrow and a comfort to the soul of the deceased.
Smid rose, with a bill in his hand, and looked round him-perhaps to see what was expected of him. He half lifted his weapon to strike .... Philammon, seated, looked him calmly in the face.... The old warrior’s eye caught the bank, which was now receding rapidly past them; and when he saw that they were really floating downwards again, without an effort to stem the stream, he put away his bill, and sat himself down deliberately in his place, astonishing the onlookers quite as much as Philammon had done.