The day of Saturn had been a day of frost and snow and storm until near its close. The day of the sun had brought the sun's breath from his own land and his smile into the sky, and he had slain the winter at a blow. The morrow would be the day of the moon, and before its arrival came now this night of such uproar that Oswald did not care to touch his harp, and the vikings mended their armor and sharpened their swords in silence. Hilda also was long silent, nor had Ulric the Jarl spoken aught that could be heard by all. When at last his voice arose, and men put by their work to hear, he gave answer to a question of Tostig the Red.
"Aye!" he said loudly, "the ship is ready from stem to stern. We will launch her behind the ice as it leaveth the shore. We will follow the floes as the tides bear them southward; ever do they melt as they go. So shall no other ship sail before us, and we shall be the first of all keels from the Northland, this year, among the islands of the Middle Sea."
Fiercely twanged the harp of Oswald and loud rang the shouts of the men who heard the young jarl speak his purpose, but before the harp could sound again Hilda arose in her place.
"Son of Brander," she said, "thou wilt go. Thou wilt see many things. All day have I been watching thy path, and the clouds are over it. In this thing that I now tell thee, do thou as did thy father: crush the keels of Rome in the seas of Britain and smite the men of Rome on the British island. And in the end of all thou wilt die, as did thy father, at the hand of a spearman of Cæsar."
"So be it," shouted Ulric, with a laugh on his lips and a flash of fire in his bold, bright eyes; "I ask no better!"
He said no more, but seated himself and began to sharpen his seax on a smooth, hard stone.
[CHAPTER III.]
The Launching of "The Sword."
The day of the moon, the second day of the week, dawned brightly over the village of the vikings. The faces of the cliffs along the shores of the Northland boomed back continuous echoes of the thunderous reports of the splitting ice. The frost had been strong, and the winter mail of the sea was thick and hard, but the sun and the lifting tides and all the torrents from the mountains made a league, and they were more powerful than was the ice. The south wind also helped them.