"We will stay by until she is burned to her keel," said Ulric; "but now pull out a little further."
So did they, and the Britons came no more to the ledge, for the prize they had hoped for was a heap of ashes upon the rocks.
"A good ship was she," muttered Knud the Bear. "She fought well against the ice floes and the storms. May all the gods go with us in this trireme. I would I knew her by some name."
"O Knud," loudly responded Ulric, "I will answer thee. This keel that was Roman hath become Saxon, and her name is now _The Sword_. Else we had not burned the other. The trireme shall be to us as if we had builded her on the shore of the Northland. She will sail with the hammer of Thor and the flag of Odin and not with a Roman god."
"I am better satisfied," exclaimed Wulf the Skater. "But many good rowers must take the oars of this trireme in battle. She is heavy."
"I think," said Tostig the Red, "that we are stronger than are the hired rowers or the slave rowers of the Romans. Her beak will break the ribs of another keel and she will do well in storms."
The jarl's eyes were still upon the burning timbers which remained upon the ledge.
"I will take a boat," he said, "and men with me. We must gather all fragments for utter destruction."
Upon that duty he went, and it was made complete before the small boat returned to the trireme. All the while many Britons watched them from the shore, but came not against them.
"Too many of them have been slain," said the vikings. "They like not our heavy spears."
Before climbing into the trireme the jarl made them row to her beak, that he might examine well its form and its power for striking a blow, and that he might also look more closely at the figurehead.
"It is much waterworn," he said. "She is the wise woman among the gods of the Romans. She will care not much that the hammer of Thor is on the fore deck."
The small boat was hoisted to its place and the vikings began to speak more freely of the trireme by her new name of _The Sword_.
"Up with the sails," commanded Ulric. "The wind is fair. We will go southward this night, and we will seek the Saxon village that was described to me by Olaf, the son of Hakon. But we will not go too fast or too far, lest we may pass it in the dark."