Leif gave a shout."My skill has riot failed me," he cried."We enter the Frankish firth.See, there is the butt of England!"After that the helms were swung round, and a course laid south by west.And then the mist came again, but this time it was less of a shroud, for birds hovered about their wake, so that they were always conscious of land.
Because of the strength of the tides the rowers made slow progress, and it was not till the late afternoon of the seventeenth day that Leif approached Ironbeard with a proud head and spoke a word.The King nodded, and Leif took his stand in the prow with the lead in his hand.The sea mirroring the mist was leaden dull, but the old pilot smelt shoal water.
Warily he sounded, till suddenly out of the gloom a spit of land rose on the port, and it was clear that they were entering the mouth of a river.
The six galleys jolted across the sandbar, Leif in the foremost peering ahead and shouting every now and then an order.It was fine weather for a surprise landing.Biorn saw only low sand-dunes green with coarse grasses and, somewhere behind, the darkness of a forest.But he could not tear his eyes from it, for it was the long-dreamed-of Roman land.
Then a strange thing befell.A madness seemed to come on Leif.He left his pilot's stand and rushed to the stern where the King stood.Flinging himself on his knees, he clasped Ironbeard's legs and poured out supplications.