"Follow them?" exclaimed Comus. "Vale, O comrade! But the trireme lieth a handbreadth deeper. She is sinking! O all the gods! Have we come to this ending? Who shall deliver us?"
"None, O Comus," said a man of dark countenance who leaned over the bulwark at his side. "We have offended the gods and they have left us to our fate."
Lower sank the wooden walls of the great vessel, while her helpless crew and the soldiery stared despairingly at the pitiless sand and at the White Horse flag of the vikings dancing lightly over the sea so near them.
"Form!" commanded Comus, and the legionaries fell into ranks all over the vessel. "Put ye the body of Lentulus upon the deck," he said, "and bring me the eagle of the legion. O Lentulus, true comrade, brave friend, we salute thee, for all we who were of thy company go down to meet thee. Behold, we perish!"
Silent sat the rowers at their oars. The standards fluttered in the wind. The trierarch took the eagle and went and stood by the body of Lentulus.
"They are brave men, yonder," said Biorn the Berserker. "They will to die in line. So do the Romans conquer all others except the men of the North."
"They have one trireme the less," replied Tostig the Red. "But they have many more. This is not like burning one. I see no honor to us in this."
"Honor to the gods," said Ulric. "She was too strong for us and Odin destroyed her."
"It is well to have him on our side," said Tostig; but Knud the Bear laughed loudly, as was his wont, and said: "Odin is not a sea god. What hath he to do with sand and water? Some other god is hidden under the living sand. We shall leave him behind us when we go away——"