I hear Swend yell to his men through the smoke; the floor shakes as they come running towards us. They break out of the gloom; they leap on the table smiting and stabbing. But the long arms of our men pull them down; they fall. Lord Snorē’s axe swirls and bangs on their armour; the table is cleared. They draw back, gasping like dogs; their wounded lie against the wall in the drip of the candles. I see the chests of our men heave in their weariness. They lean with their backs against the wall, wiping their slippery hands on the skirts of their garments. The smoke comes down; again they come. The fight closes in again the struggling forms striking over the table, I catch dim sight of swift grey shapes and the flashing of swords high in the air. Our men are panting like bulls; I hear the straining of their leather coats as they lean, striking into the mist. Bodies of men come shocking against the table; there is roaring, and trampling of feet, and banging and clashing of armour, and breaking of wood, and the sound of Lord Snorē’s axe falling regularly comes through the darkness.
All this comes to me, dimly, as though through a dream, and dreaming, I catch a passing sight of the shadowy figures in the smoke on the other side of the table. The fight goes on; it goes on for ever and ever it seems; and the world in the smoke and the noises and sounds of the combat grow farther and farther away; they come to me unreally, in a far-off roar, like the sea.
I hear the sound of waves; the water roars, and roars, and roars—farther and farther—then nearer again; the ship moves and heaves and turns slowly round under the motion. And now I hear the sound of my harp playing, coming through the sound of the water; that ceases, and I hear the sound of Snorē’s and Helga’s voices speaking softly. I hear the words—they come to me over the continuous sound of the water—and they are silly words, about a piece of her hair that she has given him—and I laugh—
And my laugh awakens me, sounding ghastly under the dull smoke; and the tumult and ringing and roar of the combat springs up around me again.
And now, over the banging of metal and the clashing of armour on armour and the sounds of the trampling and breaking of wood and the howling, comes another sound—surely my Lord Snorē’s axe! But the blows are so quick, there is something awesome, unnatural, in the blows of a man falling so fast.
And now I am aware of a change that has come in the fight. I no longer see the ghost-figures passing, dim in the smoke. The sound of the fighting comes from out in the hall. I wait, peering into the smoke. Slowly it lifts from above the table—lifts, growing dimmer.
Outlines come out of the distance. The opposite wall of the hall looms up into the darkness. The candles glimmer and show through the smoke. I look down the hall. A grey mass, moving indistinctly, and the sound of a great continuous crashing coming from somewhere within it.
The smoke lifts more; bodies of men on the floor come out, and I can see the dim tapestries waving on the walls; and now the great sound of the crashing comes louder.
The smoke lifts yet more, it is pouring out of the windows and under the roof; the walls spring out into distinctness; and I see, plain, the end of the hall.
A crowd of men struggling and falling over each other against the great door; the flashing of armour, swords thrown in the air, clenched hands raised and falling, the end of the hall full of tumult of arms and legs and bodies, as the men rush and surge over each other against the outlet.