"Push off, men, and remember he who speaks above a whisper I shall think is tired of life."
The oars dipped and the boat crept slowly landwards.
"You know the landing, Grim?"
Grim, who sat at the tiller, merely nodded; and presently the bows grated on a strip of gravel beach.
"The trolls take you!" muttered Ketill. "Could you not have told us to slacken speed? The dead could hear a landing like this."
"'Tis all right yet, Ketill," whispered Estein. "We are too far from the hall."
"By the hammer of Thor!" growled the black-bearded captain, whose temper was ever of the shortest, "these men splash like cattle."
One by one they stepped ashore, and then the party was divided.
One man was left in charge of the boat; Ketill with three others
went round to where the long ships lay; while Estein, Helgi, and
Grim, with six picked men, cautiously approached the hall.
They crossed a strip of rising heather and struck a sharp slope of turf. Close above them loomed a dark mass of building, and the silence was unbroken save by the stealthy fall of their footsteps. Grim led the way, then came Estein, then Helgi, and the others followed in single file.
Warily they came up to the end of the hall, and under the door there was a brief pause. Estein gave his final instructions in a whisper, and then quickly pushing open the door, he stepped in. Helgi, Grim, and one man followed, while the other five waited outside with their weapons in their hands.