The Sentimental Vikings

the maiden shivered and crept closer, and I put my great skin-cloak around her.

So we sat and waited; and the moon sailed grandly overhead throwing flakes of white on the dancing water to seaward; and save for the lapping of water and occasional sounds from the fore-deck, there was stillness--out of which an owl cried, thrice, with its long, strange, mournful note, and then ceased; leaving the silence more silent.

Then, suddenly, from out the darkness, seemingly miles away, there rose, and rose, and hung on the air, and slowly died away, a great cry in a man's voice. Then there was silence once more for a moment. And now began a confused dull rabble of sound that I knew well enough; with a skin-moving swish in it like the whetting of knives. And there were far sounds of voices, and sometimes a curious hollow drubbing, like a hammer on the side of a ship; this, I could tell, was the sound of my Lord Snore's great axe as it beat on the door, and when it ceased presently I knew that the door was d