The rest agreed with him, asking him many questions concerning the sacrifices.
"But for the prudence of the jarl," he also told them, "all we who went would have been taken at a disadvantage in the darkness of the forest. There would have been no fair fighting."
"He is a good battle jarl," they said, but it might be seen that among them were some who were not well pleased with his ways.
There, safe from all assailing, floated the two keels until the dawn. Then went some of the men ashore in the small boats, and the fires were replenished for cooking, but none were permitted to wander into the woods. On board the trireme there was much search going on and great was the delight of all over the plunder discovered. Rich indeed was the store of arms, as if it had been intended to refit a cohort or to arm new recruits.
"It is good, too," they said, "to be able to walk around. There was hardly elbow-room on our own keel. But we knew that we must lose some and that there would be less crowding when we came home."
"We can give a man to every oar of the trireme," said Ulric, "and yet leave threescore to the spears."
But he looked over the bulwark and down into the good ship The Sword, and his heart smote him sadly, for the very wood she was made of came from his own trees, and she seemed to look him in the face kindly.
Hours went by before there were any newcomers upon the shore, but Olaf said that there must be patience.
"Watch also," he warned Ulric, "and let not any Briton come on board. We will meet them in the small boats at the strand."
So it came to be, for at the noon the woods became alive with men. Foremost came the chief Druid, followed by some of lesser rank and by harpers. With them were chiefs of clans of the Britons, each one calling himself a king, but being really less than a Norse jarl in power, for he was as a slave to all Druids.