Eyeing him as he lay on a coil of rope, Hrodmar and Gellir beckoned Sigurd and Bodvar. They resigned their posts to willing reliefs and picked their way amidships over and among the resting men and toiling rowers. Kollgrim, Lodbrok and Halfdan joined them and the seven conferred. All conned Thorkell and all agreed that he was fast asleep and far from rousing. Then the three chieftains beckoned their six thralls and instructed them. Erp and Ulf took convenient lengths of ratline and knotted in each a clean-running noose. Vifill paired with Hundi and Sokholf with Kepp, each pair choosing a length of light rope, thicker than a big man’s thumb. Cautiously the six crawled towards Thorkell, every man aboard, except a few sleepers and such oarsmen as were abaft of Thorkell’s position, watching their approach with malicious relish. Hundi and Vifill slipped their rope under Thorkell’s knees; Kepp and Sokholf took a turn with theirs round his ankles, Ulf and Erp each noosed a wrist: when all six were ready they looked towards Kollgrim, and, at his nod, the two nooses tightened and the ropes were knotted fast round Thorkell’s knees and ankles. Even that did not waken him and, as Erp and Ulf pulled their cords and dragged his arms wide, his four pretended friends sprang on him, turned him on his face, and, after a violent struggle, for, even with knees and ankles lashed, Thorkell fought like a wildcat, they pinioned his arms behind him and turned him once more face upward, trussed and helpless. Then they gloated over him, told him what they really thought of him, and insulted him to their hearts’ content. Halfdan, who was an acclaimed skald, composed and chanted over him an impromptu drapa of triumph. Even the thralls expressed their envious malignity. Gellir proposed to run him through and Bodvar to throw him overboard. But Kollgrim demurred. The thirty-four freemen had taken oath to a pledge of mutual fellowship, as was customary in all Viking voyages, and he pointed out that they were bound, all of them, by their oath and must keep its letter, if not its spirit. Lodbrok thereupon suggested that they set him adrift, bound as he was, in their smallest boat, which had been half stove during the storm and was presumably leaky; putting into it with him a small hide flask of water and one smoked fish. Then they could accuse him of wilful desertion. By then it was nearer noon than sunrise, but no sight of the sun had they had, nor could any man, in that fog, conjecture the sun’s place in the sky. Their outlook was all gray mist and smooth groundswell, for there was not a catspaw of breeze. From the boat they took its sail, mast and oars; but they did not search it carefully. In it they laid a leather flask of water and two little smoked fish. In it they laid Thorkell, trussed as he was, but, as they launched the boat, Kollgrim cut the ropes at his knees and ankles.