Ned himself felt better, for several reasons.
"I've not been so very seasick," he said to himself, "but I'd like to eat something cooked. I'm tired of chewing dried fish and raw ham. The water is bad, too, and I won't drink any beer. There's one thing, though; there isn't any smoking or tobacco chewing among these fellows. There isn't a pipe, nor a cigar, nor a Virginia plug, in the whole fleet. No cigarettes. They can't get any, yet, but they will, some day."
The headlands at the mouth of the Humber were very near now. The King of England had no forts there, nor had he stationed any forces to oppose the landing of an enemy. The fact was, as Ned had learned from Father Brian, that the Saxons did very little stone-work building, whether of castles or churches.
"That's one thing they'll have to learn after they're conquered," said the good missionary. "The ignorant savages! But it'll be a queer lot of teaching that'll be going on among them now, with Tostig and Hardrada for teachers."
Ned was all the more of that opinion after he heard Sikend the Berserker blessing Thor and Woden for getting him across the sea, and for the chances he was soon to have for murdering Saxons.
"I know what he means by the Valkyrias and the ravens," said Ned to Father Brian, "but what is it he was saying about being afraid of a cow's death?"
"These Norse heathen," replied the priest, "have a notion that it's a burning shame for any man to die decently in his bed. He'd rather be murdered, any day. May he have his own will in that matter, say I! Most likely he will not be disappointed, this trip, and there will be more than one funeral the day they put him under,—the wild beast!"
At that moment, truly, Sikend was hardly looking like a human being. He sat upon the low deck amidships, between the rows of rowers, sharpening with a stone the edge of an enormous battle-ax. Now and then he would hold it up to the light, twirling its heavy weight as if it had been a feather, while his dark, hairy features twisted and gleamed with bloodthirsty ferocity, and his deeply sunken eyes flashed fire. From such a slayer as he, no foeman might look for mercy. It was said of all Berserkers that in their blind rage they spared neither old nor young, man or woman or child.
"All of them will have to be killed off," said Ned, decidedly. "The world can't be really civilised while they are in it."
"That is what will have to be done," replied Father Brian. "We had them as bad as he is, in the old days, in Ireland. Picts and Scots, they were, and Cornishmen that came over to harry the land. The worst of all were the giants, like Finn and his big brethren. What wouldst thou think of Sikend now, my boy, if he were twelve feet high, and had four arms to kill with, instead of only twain, his mouth blowing fire, and his every stride more than the length of a tall man?"