After that Atli thrust at him with his spear, and struck him about his middle. Kol swept at him with his axe, but missed him, and fell off his horse, and died at once.
Atli rode till he met some of Hallgerda's workmen, and said, "Go ye up to the horse yonder, and look to Kol, for he has fallen off, and is dead".
"Hast thou slain him?" say they.
"Well, 'twill seem to Hallgerda as though he has not fallen by his own hand."
After that Atli rode home and told Bergthora; she thanked him for this deed, and for the words which he had spoken about it.
"I do not know," says he, "what Njal will think of this."
"He will take it well upon his hands," she says, "and I will tell thee one thing as a token of it, that he has earned away with him to the Thing the price of that thrall which we took last spring, and that money will now serve for Kol; but though peace be made thou must still beware of thyself, for Hallgerda will keep no peace."
"Wilt thou send at all a man to Njal to tell him of the slaying?"
"I will not," she says, "I should like it better that Kol were unatoned."
Then they stopped talking about it.