The Honor of a King

by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur

“BID them leave their weapons at the door!”

 

The Honor of a King

by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur
—A Complete Novelette

Author of “Judgment By Steel," “The King’s Choice,” etc.

“They are unarmed, O king.”

“Then they come in peace, and are welcome. Show them honor!”

Sigurd of the Sword-Danes, Keeper of the Door, turned to obey; and Hnaf the king bent anxious eyes upon his followers.

“Say naught to offend them,” he ordered. “They have sworn to keep peace with us; but these outland Jutes—are men without honor, quick to take offense—and they are jealous of us. They deem it unjust that Finn the Folk-Ruler gives more presents to us, his guests, than to them, his followers.”

He stopped abruptly as the door opened to admit his visitors.

It was the year 446, when all the folk of the North were growing restless in their crowded homes. The Danes, under their great king Halfdan, were very powerful, but feared the expanding empire of the Swedes; Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, having spied out the fairness of Britain, were grinding swords and building keels; and Finn the Folk-Ruler, mighty monarch of the Frisians, had not only spread his power from Zuyder Zee to Ems, but even reached out into Slesvik and the northern isles. Only the little confederacy of the South-Danes, under their petty king Hnaf, neither feared nor envied any other folk. They were prosperous and safe; their ruler’s skill in war, his loyalty to his great suzerain Halfdan, and his sister’s marriage to Finn the Folk-Ruler, assured them wealth and protection. Thus they had felt free to cross the water to the Frisian capital, to join in the coming-of-age festival of Finnlaf, son to Finn, and Hnaf’s nephew.

Their arrival had been greeted with rejoicing; much gold and silver had been heaped upon them. Too much; for the Outland Jutes who served as mercenaries in the Frisian ranks—outlaws without a country or a king of their own—were beginning to mutter at Finn’s preference for his South-Danish guests.

But the two Jutes who entered with the Keeper of the Door showed no hostility. They were big, lithe men, with merry faces; and Hnaf’s brow cleared as he recognized them. Rising from his high seat in the middle of one long side of the hall, he strode with outstretched hand to greet his visitors.

“Hail, Wulf, war-chief of the Jutes!” he cried. “Glad are we to pour ale for so great a warrior! Take the seat of honor at my side, and bid your companion sit at the upper end of the bench nearest us. Ho, Auha! Drink for our guests!”

Wulf the Jute laughed joyously as he tossed off the heady ale, and thrust out the gold-wrought horn for more.

“You are the prince of givers, Hnaf!” he answered. “The night being cold, you offer me warmed drink! Such ale King Finn does not brew. Nay, let me not sit beside you, for you are a king, and I but a soldier of no birth. I will bide here, by my captain Wigstan.”

And despite Hnaf’s urgings he insisted on taking his place at the end of the bench that ran along the north wall of the gabled building.

Anxious to please the Jutish chiefs—and so to end the ill-concealed malice which their followers bore the South-Danes—Hnaf stationed no less a champion than Hengist the Hammerer behind them, with orders to keep their horns full; and crying for more meat, he saw to it that their hands and mouths were kept busy with well-roasted tidbits. Wulf and Wigstan needed no urging, but fell to like men famished.

Yet they managed to convey a subtle insult to their hosts, by giving neither thanks nor notice to the man who poured their wine. Hengist the Hammerer, son of Hnaf’s younger sister as the Frisian prince Finnlaf was son of the elder, was famous for his courage through all the North, and a prince to boot; yet the two Jutes showed no sense of the honor conferred on them by his services. Hengist flushed hotly, but set down their offense to ignorance.

Once more in his seat of authority, Hnaf steered the talk into what he deemed safe channels. If he could make friends of these men, he and his hundred followers might yet bring their visit—which must last the Winter through, for the Frisian harbors would soon be ice-bound—to a safe end. Otherwise the rancor of the Jutes must soon break out in quarrels, blood would flow, and Finn would face the perilous task of judging between his Danish kinsfolk by marriage and the fierce mercenaries whose valor had often brought him victory.

“’Twill be a great feast tomorrow,” Hnaf began. “My nephew Finnlaf is a warrior already, for all his youth. Did he not slay two full-armed Franks ten days ago, no man helping him? And so near his coming of age—a good omen!”

Wulf the Jute paused in his eating, a half-gnawed beef-bone in his great fist.

“A warrior indeed!” he assented. “Worthy of his blood—both of his father’s and his mother’s. All men know that you South-Danes are good folk to take wives from!”

“We were much honored when the great King of the Frisians married my sister,” Hnaf returned the compliment. “Truly he is fortunate above all rulers, with so wide a realm, so strong a son, and the bravest men of the North to fight for him!”

Wulf washed down the last of his meat, and cast a glance at his companion. “Aye, we are valiant,” he boasted complacently. “I have slain two and twenty men with my own hand, and Wigstan here has slain fifteen. Not a man of the eight-score who follow me but has offered at the least four dead foes to Odin!”

Sigurd, he who kept the door, was a wise man; but he recognized this as a taunt, and could not resist making answer. He was himself a prince in a small way. He drew his magnificent body up to its full height.

“We, too, are not without fame,” he retorted. “Men say that I have destroyed more enemies than any other man that ever left Danish soil!”

Hnaf’s house-carles burst into guttural shouts of applause. Sigurd, chief of the clan of the Sword-Danes, was indeed a mighty champion, whom his countrymen would gladly back against any Jute that ever drew a mercenary’s pay.

But Hnaf was not pleased; he knew that boasting, once well launched, would lead to angry glances, perhaps to blows. His two guests, having come unarmed, trusted to him for protection from insult. The hall was hot with the fire that roared in the great central hearth, and the ale mounted rapidly to his men’s heads.

“We are glad,” he said politely, “to entertain such mighty heroes, whose brave deeds teach us how to bear ourselves.” Yet even as he spoke, his eyes intercepted a glance that flashed from Wulf to Wigstan; and he was certain it boded no friendliness. He was disturbed that the two Jutes did not remove their coats of mail. Etiquette forbade his suggesting it, though the guests must be sweltering in all that heat. But that they did not doff their armor of their own accord was almost an insult—it hinted that they did not trust their hosts. If so, what was the purpose of their visit? To spy out the Danes’ dispositions for defense of the hall which King Finn had assigned them?

“Aye, mighty we are,” Wulf proclaimed loudly. “Mightier and braver than all other men!”

This was too much, making all allowance for the ale he had drunk. It is one of the seven deeds of shame to boast one’s self better in any way than one’s host. Every man was entitled to boast at table; it was a duty he owed his self-respect; but there were well-defined limits, and the Jutish war-chief had exceeded them.

Hnaf turned purple, but clapped his hands in polite applause. He wanted no trouble. He and his five-score men were alone in a foreign land. The hall his royal brother-in-law had given them for their lodging was three miles from the royal hall itself, and four from the quarters of the Jutes whom Finn used for shock troops; for the Frisian king held that the best way of avoiding quarrels between the three people was to keep them apart except when they were in his own presence. But this very isolation from Finn’s court exposed the South-Danes to assault, if the Jutes should dare break the king’s peace. Yet Hnaf scarcely thought they would. To do so meant to incur the wrath of the mighty Finn, whose arm was so long and so heavy that all men called him “Folk-Ruler.”

But if Hnaf forebore to rebuke his guests, there was one whose hot blood could not brook their insolence. Hengist, noblest of all the South-Danes save Hnaf alone, bent over Wulf’s shoulder and flung an answer into his very ear.

“Strong and brave as ye are,” he cried, his young face bright with anger, “there sits one braver and better than any kingless Jute that ever took a foreigner’s wages!”

He pointed to his uncle, Hnaf.

Now to remind a man who has left his own country to serve a king of another land that he fights for wages is scant courtesy. Wulf, nudging his companion, rose, a black scowl on his face.

“Come, Wigstan!” he commanded. “We are unwelcome here!”

Hnaf hastened forward to appease them, but they paid no heed to his outstretched hand. The Danes had not applauded Hengist’s outburst, for they sensed its danger, and winced at its bad manners. But as the Jutes edged toward the door there was none but Hnaf to bid them stay.

Wulf flung open the door, which was guarded without by a single champion, Hunlaf the Strong. There being no apparent need for vigilance, Hunlaf sat on the bench by the threshold, his face hidden by a tilted flagon. Wigstan, who had drunk—or seemed to have drunk—too much, stumbled over Hunlaf’s feet. The Jute glared savagely; and when Hunlaf did not excuse himself, Wigstan cried roughly—

“Out of my way, dog, eater of offal!”

With a howl of rage the Dane sprang to his feet, and swung a brawny fist. Wigstan, with a dexterity that belied his seeming drunkenness, swerved from the blow, snatched a broad knife from under his mail tunic, and plunged the blade deep in his opponent’s throat.

“Treachery!” roared the Danes, all leaping up. “They bear weapons!”

Their eyes aflame with malice, the two Jutes stood by the open door. The Danes were taken by surprize. No guest was supposed to bear arms in the hall of his host; and these two had said they were weaponless. To show their own good faith, the Danes had hung their arms high on pegs along the walls. Now, while those nearest the door ran forward to prevent the Jutes from escaping, others sprang for the pegs and clutched at sword and spear.

Wigstan’s knife dripped blood across the threshold; Wulf now bore a second gleaming blade.

It came, the first Danes to reach them being weaponless, but mad with anger. Wulf grunted an order—the two knives flashed. Wulf’s struck a Danish house-carle between the neck-cords; Wigstan’s caught on his adversary’s cloak and scarce drew blood. Before Wigstan could strike again, sinewy fingers closed on his throat and tore the life from him.

Snarling like a beast, Wulf hurled his knife at Hnaf’s head, and sprang out into the cold darkness. A javelin swished after him, passing over his head. Behind him roared the pursuit, a dozen lean-limbed soldiers, some armed, some trusting to their thews. But there was no moon yet, and the ground was black with frost. When the house-carles returned, they came not empty-handed; yet they bore no captive with them.

Wulf’s knife still stuck in the wall, where it had sunk deep after missing Hnaf’s head. The king wrenched it from the wood, and held it up for all to see. The blade was full twelve inches long, very broad, and double-edged.

“Such a tool no man carries to carve his meat,” he spoke ominously. “I should rebuke you, my nephew, for bringing this upon us, were it not clear that our foes meditated treachery from the first. Else they had not brought these—or had given them up to the guard at the garth-gate.”

He broke off, aware that those who had returned from vain pursuit were watching him with bloodthirsty eyes.

“What now, Auha?” he questioned.

“The guard at the gate of the palisade,” Auha answered. “Four good men—all slain, their weapons gone!”

“Man the gate, and the loopholes!” Hnaf cried swiftly. “Out bows and shafts! Don your mail!”

Every man who was not already full-armed snatched at his weapons. Arrow-chests were flung open, bows and arrows served out. The hides covering the loop holes in the wall were cast aside, letting the cold air in. Before each loophole stood an archer, a second waiting in reserve, sup ported by a spearman.

The chiefs grouped about Hnaf, receiving orders. Three-score men, captained by Sigurd, Auha, and Hnaf himself, then rushed into the palisaded courtyard, buckling their mail and clapping on their helmets as they ran. The bodies of the slain guards were dragged in, and the great gate barred.

“This night may my nephew Hengist fight as bravely as he speaks!” muttered Hnaf, bending over the dead guards. “He has always borne himself well, nor is he too young to command the inner defense. But I would not have him out here—he is too rash. Ha!”

He had turned over the corpse of one of the slain, and saw that the throat was cut from ear to ear. The other three had been served in likewise.

“From behind!” the king observed, “and with such knives as Wulf and Wigstan— But this is the work of more than two men! Others crept up in the dark, while we entertained their chiefs. And if so, then they have a host in hiding out yonder!”

He pointed to the wide, dark plain, where an army might have lurked unseen, so it kept far enough away for the jingle of its mail to pass unheard.

“Sigurd!” the king cried. “Auha! Come hither!”

As the two chiefs hurried up, he explained his thoughts.

“This is a well-contrived plot. Doubtless all Finn’s Jutish mercenaries are skulking yonder. This being the night before the great feast, they have been given leave, and think to use it to destroy us. When we are dead, they will go before King Finn and lay complaint against us, saying that we forced a quarrel on them. There is but one way to outwit their cunning—dispatch messengers to the king to tell him the truth!”

“How shall messengers win past their lines, if they indeed be there?” asked Auha, peering into the night.

“Even as Wulf escaped us—under cover of the dark. Send two men out, without armor to betray them with its noise, armed only with short swords. It is our only hope. We can hold off great odds till Finn comes with his Frisians; but if the Jutes deceive him with a false tale, he will be bitter against us for breaking the peace. My brother-in-law is a just man, but stern. We must get word to him first!”

Two men came forward, swift runners. Their mail cast off, they stood before Hnaf in their short cloaks, and received their orders.

“If ye are caught, ye perish!” Hnaf warned them. “Win through at all cost, and I will cover your arms with gold!”

The gate was opened as softly as might be, and the runners vanished into the dark. Quietly the bars were dropped behind them again.

For every twelfth post in the palisade there was a loophole at the height of a man’s neck, made by gouging out half the width of each post where two joined; and—lacking enough archers to post at each—Hnaf set a bowman at every other loophole. The alternate holes were guarded by spearmen with eight-foot shafts. These dispositions took half his outer garrison; twelve of those remaining he told off to hold the gate, and held eighteen in reserve. All save the bowmen were armed with round shield, spear, and either sword or ax. Hnaf himself stood in the open space between hall and palisade, where he could direct the main fighting.

His little force marshaled, the king waited; and all held silence, straining their ears for the tramp of feet and the clang of shield on mailed back. For perhaps the quarter of an hour no sound arose, save the eager breathing of the Danes; then, afar off, the pounding of a horse’s hoofs smote the earth; steel clashed; and cleaving the night as a sword cleaves flesh, a voice cried, deep and resonant—

“On guard, Danes!”

The distant clash of steel again; then, as swiftly stopped, there pealed out a vast shout of triumph—the war-cry of the outland Jutes.

“They have caught our runners—ran them down with horses!” cried Hnaf. “It was Ragnvald’s voice that bade us be on guard. Stand to your arms, lads! If we survive their rush, we have still to reckon with King Finn, who, having only their tale to judge us by, will hold us the aggressors.”

A distant tramping shook the plain—the march of eight-score mailed men. Their iron-bound shields clanked against their steel-clad shoulders; their wooden scab bards rattled at their sides. As they came steadily on, eating up the distance in long strides, one sang in their ranks—the measured chanting of an ancient war song.

Then the moon came out with a rush, sailing through a bank of black cloud; and it was as if a hundred torches had flamed at once.

Quickly Hnaf called to him two warriors.

“Lay down your weapons,” he commanded, “all save your mail and shields. Climb the roof, and there cover yourselves as best ye may. But watch well, and if any brands are flung up on the thatch, cast them down again. I had thought it would rain.”

Swiftly the two mounted the outer stair to the loft, swung to the eaves, and scaled the slanting roof, where they lay out along the ridge-pole, each holding his shield so as to guard head and back against arrows.

Hengist, within the hall, had taken such means as he could to support the outer garrison. His own force would be safe until the palisade should be carried—or till a lucky cast with glowing torch or fire-arrow should set the hall in flames. It was fire rather than direct assault that the besieged feared.

Hengist had sent half his men to the loft, whence small windows, each a foot square, gave on all four sides of the court, six of them commanding the gate, with a clear sweep over the palisade. Of his remaining twenty, ten stood at the north door of the hall, ten at the south, waiting to re-enforce or to cover the retreat of Hnaf’s men.

Now the advancing Jutes were spied by the two on the roof, and their cry of alarm was mocked by the shout of the assailants. Their armor flashing in the moonlight, the Jutes offered a perfect target for the shafts of the besieged; yet no arrow was loosed. Not till the hostile column—marching eight abreast—was within javelin-flight were they challenged from the gate; and at the first shout they halted.

“Why come ye hither with spears by night?” called Hnaf; and the rough voice of Wulf made answer:

“For the blood of Danes! Sing your death-songs to Odin; for there shall be no peace between you and us till the ravens have picked your bones!”

“How shall ye answer to Finn for the murder of his kinsmen?”

The Jutish war-chief laughed in full-throated scorn.

“When ye are dead ye cannot bear witness against us!” he scoffed. “Nor will your two messengers accuse us—they have gone to bid the gods prepare a place for you. Make ready, all!”

At his order, the Jutish ranks divided into two columns of four. Down the lane between them advanced a dozen men bearing a stout log at a shambling trot.

“Loose!” cried Hnaf. His veteran bowmen at the loopholes flanking the gate drove their shafts at short range into the breasts of those who bore the battering ram. Released by their fall, the log crashed down across their bodies.

At the same moment, as others sprang to pick up the log, Hengist’s archers poured in a volley from the loft-windows. With a cry of consternation—for they had not faced Danes before, and knew not that people’s skill in war—the foremost ranks fell back.

“To the work, ye dogs!” roared Wulf. “Will ye cringe before half your number? Once more!”

To hearten them, he himself seized the nearer end of the log; and quickly his bravest warriors ranged behind him. Back of them the two columns waited, ready to pour through the gate as soon as a breach should be made.

Once more the Danish archers loosed. Two of the log-bearers dropped; but the three shafts which reached Wulf rebounded harmlessly from his mail. He laughed again. Under his ring-armor he wore a breast-piece of plate captured from the River-Franks, proof against arrows.

Now the Danes were shooting no longer in volleys, but each man for himself, as fast as they could notch and pull. Hnaf did not need to direct them, for they were experienced soldiers all, trained to their trade from boyhood. One by one they picked off those who bore the log, only Wulf escaping. But as fast as the Jutes fell, others took their places, till they came so close to the gate that the Danish archers had to expose their heads and bow-arms perilously through the loopholes to reach them. For this the Jutes were waiting, and their javelins flashed silver in the moonlight. Two of the Danes were pinned to the posts, and had to be pulled away, mangled, before others could replace them.

Now Wulf, bearing the near end of the log, was within stroke of the gate.

“Thrust!” he cried, and swung on the timber.

In that moment Sigurd, Keeper of the Door, shoved an archer aside and, peering through the loopholes, marked Wulf’s position. His long spear shot out, not for the impenetrable breastplate, but for the right hand that clutched the log. The light was deceptive, so that the spear-point but bruised the hand; but Wulf’s fingers, already stiff with cold, relaxed. Wulf dropped his end, just as the man behind him fell with an arrow through the throat. Dismayed, the Jutes gave way, the heavy log crashing to the earth.

Before they could renew the assault, Hengist’s men in the loft brought a rain of shafts to bear on the heads of the two columns. A dozen men dropped; and now the Jutes ran back in fear, for they had lost in all twenty-six men—almost a sixth of their total strength. Well out of arrow-flight they shrank, Wulf cursing them and ordering them to stand fast.

But they were not beaten. They were no conscripts, enrolled from unwilling peasants; most of them were of good blood, and all were famous champions. Only annihilation could conquer their blood-lust. Once out of range they re-formed in two bodies, each in column of four. From each body six archers were told off—there were but a dozen bowmen all told; for none but Danes, in that age, were bowmen by trade and training. Under cover of this handful of archers Wulf ordered his first column forward, the second following at an interval of twenty paces. They came on slowly, shield-rim lapping shield-rim to protect their front. Protected by their ranks, the archers kept pace with their advance, halting at eighty yards to pour their arrows against the loopholes of the palisade.

“Now for it!” cried Hnaf. “They will assail the gate with axes. Run, Arnulf, and bid my nephew direct his shafts against their column. Do ye at the loopholes smother their archers. Loose!”

Then began a contest of archery, while between and under the hissing arrows the advancing host rolled on. Paying no attention to the phalanx, Hnaf’s bowmen shot over their heads against Wulf’s, who did their best to keep the loopholes covered. But the eight-inch apertures proved a smaller target than a man’s body; and the Jutes, who had never esteemed the bow man’s trade, were poor marksmen. Scattered though they were, they suffered so heavily that they were forced to retreat out of range.

Their volleys lasted, however, till the first column reached the gate. That it did reach its objective proved the Jutish valor, for the hot hail of shafts that beat upon them from the loft tore great gaps in their ranks. As fast as the shield-wall was breached, however, it closed again, shield lapping shield as before.

Now the first rank was close to the gate, protected by the palisade from the bowmen in the loft, and by their shields from those at the loopholes. The second and third ranks deployed, to thrust their spears at the loopholes, and so prevent the defense from harassing those who beat upon the gate. The oaken planks—each a handbreadth thick—quivered beneath the onslaught of axes.

Since the posts of the palisade rendered their shafts of no avail against the head of the column, Hengist’s men kept a stinging storm of arrows beating against the Jutish rear and mainguard, at so short a range that the barbs bit through mail and flesh. The column swayed undo: its punishment, but held its ground. Deploying would have saved many lives, but would have weakened their final rush when the time should come; wherefore, in the teeth of Hengist’s volleys, they held their own like men.

The narrow ax-blades were now biting through the planks.

“Form, all!” roared Hnaf. “Down spears!”

From the loopholes rushed the useless archers, casting aside bows and quivers, catching up their broad-headed pikes where these leaned against the posts; and all the outer garrison formed in a dense half-moon about their king. Like the Jutes, they too lapped shields, with their spear-points clutched in their right hands, and the points menacing above the shield-rims.

There was no way, now, to prevent the breach of the gate, for the Jutes covered the loopholes, and the axes of their front rank were tearing great holes in the timbers. At last Wulf’s ax-head dashed down a weakened plank; his left arm reached in to pluck at the bar, and a cluster of points lunged inward through the breach.

Hnaf’s spear struck like a snake, pinning Wulf’s hand to the timbers; but not before the bar was freed from its sockets. Before any of the Danes could jam it back, the whole Jutish first column threw itself forward, and the gate burst open. Thrown forward against his wounded arm by the rush of his own men, Wulf found himself freed by the tearing loose of his speared hand. Staggering a moment, he hurled his ax full in the face of a Dane, recovered his balance, and drew sword.

The first onslaught of the column rolled up against the Danish spears; but as those in the rear surged up through the entrance, their weight forced the Danes to drop their shafts and flail out with sword and ax. The moment’s loss of time, as they reached for their hand-weapons, cost them several men. But in the forefront were the most skilful warriors, Sigurd the Doorkeeper, famed throughout the North; Auha of the Red Sword; Guthlaf and Oslaf, and Hnaf himself, backed by veterans of a score of stricken fields.

“To the hall!” cried Hnaf. “By fours, to the rear!”

It was the only hope, for now the second Jutish column reenforced the first, and a steady torrent of men jammed the Danish circle back, widening it, threatening to break through. On the flanks the Danes drew more blood than in the center, for they took the onrushing Jutes in the sides; but the Danish flanks were thinner than the inner arc. It was but a question of time before they must break before superior weight; hence it was that Hnaf ordered the rearmost to fall back on the hall.

A desperate fight ensued to hold the gate till the bulk of the Danish force should reach the hall doors. Their formation permitted the withdrawal of many men with out presenting fewer points to the foe; for the rearmost Danes could not reach the Jutes, and lent only weight to the defense. But weight Hnaf’s men needed, being outnumbered at best; and it was only by the terrible exertions of the great champions among them that the circle held.

As each four men withdrew, they dashed for the hall, and there formed at each of the two doors, in the east and west walls. Here they were strengthened by most of Hengist’s men, pouring down from the loft to help hold lie entrances. Hengist himself, with the best of his champions, hastened to the gate to prolong the stand there. For perhaps five minutes they were welcome; but by that time the bulk of the garrison was in the hall.

When only twenty men were left to hold off the assault, Hnaf gave word to abandon the gate. With a final desperate rally they struck down seven of the foremost Jutes, and fled like deer before the assailants could recover from their brief confusion.

Wulf, his left hand torn and dripping blood, his right clutching his sword, leaped over the slain and led the pursuit. The first of his spearmen hurled their weapons, striking down two Danes; then, like a river in spate, they poured through the court after their foes.

For this Hengist had been waiting. Withdrawing a little ahead of the general flight, he had given orders to his bowmen at the loopholes in the hall. The gate being in the north wall, and the outer garrison having sped for the east door of the building, the pursuit had to traverse half of the north and east walls. As they passed the loopholes, withering volleys tore their unshielded right sides, dropping half a score. Pursuit was slowed just enough for the last of the Danes to reach shelter and bar the door.

ONCE within the palisade, the Jutes were once more exposed to arrows from the loft.. Hnaf had now taken command over the entire Danish force, and sent eighteen bowmen to man the loopholes above stairs. All told, thirty bows were drumming their shafts into the Jutes at close range, where neither shields nor armor were adequate defense.

Fuming with wrath, Wulf saw his advantage in numbers dwindle. The range was so short, and the archers in the loft so secure from attack, that his men were dropping in clusters. Again and again his axmen thundered at the two entrances; but the stout doors held. Roaring in rage, Wulf raised his own ax and hurled himself at the east door. His strokes sheared through the heavy boards, for all he had but one good hand. Not for nothing was Wulf known as a champion of champions.

“Waldhere and Sigehere, to me!” he cried; and two stalwart chiefs ran up to add their strokes to his own.

In succession they struck, each on or just beneath the spot where the others’ strokes had weakened the planking.

“The door yields!” cried Hnaf. “Stand fast!”

“The west door is gone!” Auha reported. “Sigurd holds it with ten men.”

“Take him ten more. Hengist and I hold this door with twenty. Call down the bowmen!”

Wulfhere, brother of Wulf, had beaten in the west door. He was about to rush in at the head of his men, when he became aware of a giant blocking the entrance, shield up, great sword raised to strike. The doorway was so narrow that only one man, with his weapons, could break through at a time; a mass rush could not help, for the door-sill was raised a foot above the ground, and would break their onslaught. Behind the giant stood a ring of men with lowered spear-points.

Wulfhere, with the instinct of the duellist, challenged the giant—

“Who art thou that holdest the door?”

His eyes burning into his foe’s, the giant answered in a boasting chant:

“I am Sigurd the Doorward, Prince of the Sword-Danes, a champion widely known. If thou lovest thy young life, avoid me; otherwise enter, and taste the death in my sword!”

“I enter!” bellowed Wulfhere.

He set one foot on the door-sill, his point seeking an opening; and quicker than lightning fell the blade of Sigurd. His leg severed at the knee, Wulfhere fell in the arms of his followers. In silence Sigurd awaited the onrush that must follow.

A moment the Jutes held back, staring in consternation at the fall of their mighty officer. Then one sprang, for he had seen Sigurd step back, and knew not that it had been only to give Auha, Sigurd’s companion, the honor of the next blow. As the Jute leaped into the hall, Auha’s ax clove him to the brain. Then, side by side, the two champions waited; nor was there any Jute that lusted to be first to meet them.

At the east door the huge-limbed Hnaf and his fiery nephew held their posts well. Four men fell before them, Wulf himself reeling back under Hnaf’s ax. But Wulf was not slain—the stroke had been turned by his ridged helmet. He came on again. Shield he had none, for his torn hand could not bear to grip the thongs; but he feared no man while he could hold weapon. His mighty leap bore Hnaf back and cleared the step. Hnaf stumbled under his impact, but contrived to jab his shortened ax-haft into Wulf’s bearded lips; and as the Jute’s head jerked backward, Hnaf, shifting his grip, brought his blade down. The mighty ax sliced through Wulf’s mail just to one side of his plate corselet, severed the shoulder-muscles, and tore off his right arm.

The Jutes had enough of direct assault. To win inside the hall, where they would have some chance of victory, they must pass the defenders of the doors; and these, protected by the door-posts no less than by their shields, blocked the way so securely that none could pass. Aided by the high thresholds, the two champions at each door—the best men in the north at close combat—could hold their stations against a thousand.

Though the Jutes had lost their leaders, they still had champions of their own. Sigehere, a man of huge frame and much shrewdness, took command.

“Back three paces!” he ordered. “Present points! Now, though we can not come in, they can not get out. Fire the house!”

Had he not been so desperate, Sigehere would not have fallen back on the weapon of fire. Like Wulf, a lover of hand-to-hand fights, he scorned to burn out his enemies. Moreover, while it was still dark, the flames might be seen from the Frisian court, and Finn would then send messengers to learn its cause. But, though the moon was still bright, dawn was not far off; and with dawn would come Finn’s heralds in any case. The Jutes must slay all their enemies before then, or their guilt would be plain; and now that numbers were even, it would be hard for them to win. The advantage even lay with the Danes, who had lost ten men but none of their officers.

“Fire the gables!” Sigehere repeated. “We must finish them!”

His men obeyed promptly. A dozen struck steel on flint, caught the sparks on the shredded ends of bark scrolls, and bound these to the points of javelins. They must make each shaft count, for they had been unable to take many of the heavy throwing-spears with them, since their march, to accomplish its purpose before Finn could learn of it, had necessarily been light. While the main Jutish force, in two companies at either door, besieged the entrances with the points of their long pikes, the twelve flame-bearers ran swiftly about the court, seeking the best places in the straw-thatched roof to lodge their fire-darts.

This was what Hnaf had most feared—what he had in mind when he divided his own forces between the two doors. His booming voice called up his archers, and set them to shooting at those who sought to kindle the thatch, while he and Sigurd marshaled their men for a sally.

The Danish bowmen notched their shafts and loosed with careful aim, for on their success depended the fate of all. One by one they shot down the dodging, leaping Jutes even as these poised their javelins; but not before five fire-shafts had lodged in the bone-dry straw. Well had they placed their flaming weapons—low down by the eaves, yet high enough to be out of reach from the loft loopholes. On both sides of the roof crackling fires hissed and sputtered.

The two Danes who had been lying flat along the ridge-pole, sheltered by their shields, now hastened to their duty. But first they cast down their shields, for they must climb down the steep slope of the roof, and needed both hands free. One on each side, they crawled down as swiftly as safety permitted, plucked out the javelins, and beat at the flames with their hands. So far they had been safe from weapons; but now, as they crouched just above the eaves, their heads and shoulders outlined against the glow of the little fires and the moonlight, the Jutes set up a savage view-halloo. Javelins hissed about their ears; long spears were upthrust toward their mailed sides.

But the very light which revealed them shone full in the eyes of their foes, so that the Jutes aimed badly; moreover, upcast weapons strike weakly, and the two Danes were mailed. Swiftly they extinguished four of the five fires; then one, struck in a weak spot in his armor, tumbled dying among the Jutes. The other, the work on his side of the roof done, climbed up to the ridge, worked his way down the other side, and down to the remaining blaze. A yell announced that he had been discovered; a throwing-knife rebounded from his helmet, dizzying him. But he clung fast to his hold; his right hand stole out toward the spreading flame. Finding the blaze too high to be beaten out with hands, he swiftly stripped off his cloak and set about to smother it. A spear poked up to finish him; and in that moment Hnaf led his sally, Sigurd covering the charge with a demonstration from the other door.

Out of the east door the king charged, shield up, ax poised; and on his heels, one at a time—for the narrow door forbade a charge in mass—poured eighteen warriors. Hengist remained behind to hold the retreat open.

The Danish onset crashed into the circle of Jutish spears; but the advantage now was with the besiegers. It was the Danes who must now come one by one, unable to form till they cleared the step. The Jutes bore in upon their spears like hunters about a boar-run in the forest. Lucky it was for the Danes that Hnaf led them. His shield thrust aside ten points at once; his ax fell thrice, tearing a breach in the Jutish shield-wall. Then Guthlaf and Oslaf were beside him, hewing savagely, while the onrushing Danes grouped about them and strove to widen the breach enough to form in a compact wedge.

Respited by the sally, the warrior on the roof beat at the dying fire till it went out in stinking smoke. His yell of triumph told Hnaf that the purpose of the sally was effected.

Slowly, lashing out with sword and ax, the Danes retreated, Hnaf, Oslaf, and Guthlaf holding the rear. They had lost eight dead, and many of the rest were wounded. But they had broken the Jutish circle, bitten deep into the numbers of their foes, and saved the hall from burning. Step by step they made good their retreat, till all were within but the three chiefs, backed up against the doorway. Now these must turn to surmount the high threshold after their men. A second’s carelessness, a moment’s delay in the execution of their duty by those within the hall, and the Danes would lose their king and two of their stoutest champions.

But Hengist, young as he was, knew his duty well. A sudden storm of arrows flashed in the faces of the Jutes and hurled them back blinded. Seizing the instant, and covered by successive volleys, the Danish chiefs faced about and planted their feet on the threshold. Then the arrow-play ceased, to let them enter. One spring, and they were safe.

A joyful cry from the loft caught Hnaf’s ear:

“The dawn! The dawn!”

It was true. From his post Hnaf could see the rim of the far horizon shot with gray. A howl of fury rose from the Jutes; sunrise would see Finn’s messengers riding to bid the Danes to the morning’s feast. And their task was unaccomplished; the Danes still lived, to lay complaint against Jutish treachery, and tell the true tale of the attack.

“Will the gables never burn?”

Sigehere’s voice rose despairingly; but the question sent a thrill of fear to every Danish heart. He would not have spoken so if the fires in the thatch had been completely extinguished. A bowman, at the king’s command, cast down his weapons and thrust his head through a loft window. A Jutish spear buzzed past his cheek, but not before he had peered down the whole rim of the eaves.

“I see nothing,” he reported; and a second gave the same answer for the western side. But the fire—if there was one—might be high up the pitch of the roof, where they could not see it. Then a cry from the man on the roof confirmed their fears.

Yet the flame was not high up; it was at the very edge of the eaves. By some freak of fortune, the fifth of the fires, which the guard on the roof had smothered with such labor, had sent a tiny spark deep into the thatch and, unobserved, had burned under the surface. Slowly, without breaking into sight, it had crept round to the edge of the gable, where they who looked through the loopholes could not see it. Only from directly beneath, where the Jutes stood under the protection of the outer east wall, had it at last broken to the surface; and there Sigehere had seen it. It was now a race between the fire and the heralds of Finn. For some time—how long or short none could tell—it would not be dangerous enough to drive the defenders out.

The roof-guard strove valiantly to put out the flames. He crawled to the eaves, plucked at the thatch, and cast off three great handfuls before a Jutish javelin caught him in the throat. With a bubbling cry he pitched to the earth. All his valor had accomplished was to give the blaze air, and it burst out along the gable with a crackling roar.

“Stand fast!” Hnaf shouted. “We may yet hold out1. See, the rim of the sun!”

JUST as the pale sun cast its first quivering beam on the flat plain, the drumming of hoofs caught their ears. It was Auha’s shout that proclaimed the first sight of Finn’s messengers, riding fast. But they were yet far off, and the fire was gaining. Wisps of smoke were seeping through the thatch. Soon fingers of flame would reach in and hook about the roof-beams.

The messengers galloped up in a lather of foam; their voices rising in shrill surprize at the scene before them. Auha’s voice rang out:

“Treachery! Take word to Finn!”

Hnaf hastened to the western door. There, riding through the shamefaced Jutes, advanced five horsemen from the northern gate, led by none other than Prince Finnlaf. Even now, hot with battle and hopeful of rescue, Hnaf flushed with pride that Finn should have sent his own son to bid their kinsman welcome to the young prince’s feast. It was a great honor, and a fitting recognition of the ties that united Hnaf the Dane with his Frisian friends.

"What means this?” cried Finnlaf. “Who caused this evil deed?”

Before a Dane could answer, Sigehere the Jute rushed up, and fell at Finnlaf’s feet just as the prince dismounted.

“Treason, my lord!” he gasped. “Our war-chief, Wulf, and his kinsman Wigstan were the guests of these Danes last night. Basely Hnaf ordered his men to set upon them, as they sat at table, drunk with Danish beer. Wigstan was slain, being unarmed; and Wulf barely escaped to lead us on to vengeance for the wicked deed!”

“Is this true, my uncle?” Finnlaf questioned, his beardless lips tight with anger.

“By my honor, it is not!” the Dane retorted. “This dog lies! Wulf and Wig——”

He ceased suddenly, spread both arms wide, and reeled, a javelin protruding from his breast. From behind Finnlaf a Jute had cast it cunningly, to stop the perilous testimony by starting the fight anew. His crime succeeded; the furious Danes rushed from the hall to take revenge, and the Jutes pressed up to renew the battle. Spears flashed, arrows sang through the chill air.

Drawing his sword, Finnlaf thundered at them to cease. Hnaf, whose wound was not dangerous—his mail had almost turned the spear—staggered up, and cried on his Danes to leave off fighting. But the tragedy had gone too far; Danes and Jutes were locked in combat all over the court. Flames, now tearing through the thatch at a dozen points, played red on mail and blade; a thick smother of smoke, filling the enclosure, now hid, now revealed the groups of struggling warriors.

Snatching up his shield, Hnaf turned his back on his royal nephew, and, bleeding as he was, flung himself into the fight. Steel clashed on steel like the clangor of a hundred anvils. Close-gripped, choking in the hot smoke, Jute and Dane strove together, with fury that mounted to madness.

Enraged that none would heed his commands, bent on stopping the fray at all costs, Finnlaf ordered his five companions to interfere as best they could, and himself rushed to the nearest combatants. He had no plan, no thought save to stop the fighting; and his inexperience lent him no wisdom. All he knew how to do was to use his hands.

He had not run ten paces before he crashed full into a knot of struggling men, hidden from him by the smoke. One he seized by the arm, and hauled him away with fierce young strength, belaboring the other with the flat of his sword, shouting commands the while:

“Leave off, ye fools! It is I, Finnlaf, who speak! Have done!”

He might as well have interfered between rival bears in the fighting madness. The struggling men did not so much as hear him. Snarling, they flung him aside, and closed again. An ill-aimed blow sent him reeling, half-stunned.

As soon as his wits gathered, he set about his purpose with unaltered determination. Come what might, he would end the slaughter; he would show that, young as he was, he could command men. He had lost sight of his five followers in the rising smoke- billows, but he thought not of them. A lift in the reek showed two men fighting—champions, by the vigor of their blows. Finnlaf hastened to them, and bade them cease.

Then Fate thrust her relentless hand into the struggle. One of the two champions launched a mighty back-stroke at the other’s head. Full on the helmet it fell, an ax blow powerful enough to have deft its victim to the breast. But in that instant the latter stumbled, so that the stroke smote him at an angle, glanced from his helmet, and on the rebound dashed into Finnlaf’s face, laying his cheek open.

For an instant the young Frisian stood dazed; then, as his own hot blood trickled between his lips, he was seized with the fighting madness. Shouting his war-cry, he plunged his sword into the throat of the man who had unconsciously smitten him; nor did he note who the man was.

Wounded to the death, the other yet struck out once more—merely in the reflex of war-taut nerves; but the reflex was powerful in one of so mighty a frame. The dying man’s ax struck Finnlaf between the eyes, and tore his brain in two. As he fell, the morning wind sprang up. Gathering force in its sweep across the wide plain, it swept the smoke afar in trailing, tattered clouds, and revealed to both sides the last scene in the grim tragedy. One of the Frisian messengers saw it first; and his horror-charged voice tore through the forged minds of the fighting warriors and made them pause. Yet they might not have understood, or heeded, had not the flames of the burning hall suddenly torn through the gables with such intense heat that they could no longer endure it. So, roused by the shout and the heat at once, they broke off fighting—and saw.

Over the stunned form of Sigehere the Jute lay the corpse of the Danish king, his throat torn open by a blade that, dyed in his blood, was clasped in the dead fingers of Finnlaf. And Hnaf’s ax was buried in Finnlaf’s skull.

A groan burst from the throats of Danes and Jutes alike, even as the five Frisians set up the death-lament. Here was a deed that wiped the rage from their hearts, leaving only horror behind. Slain by each other’s hands, uncle and nephew—mother’s brother and sister’s son—lay dead together.

Among those peoples, no relationship, not even that of father and son, was so close, so sacred, as that between maternal uncle and nephew. Bound through life and unto death by this holiest of ties, these two had yet slain each other. Unwitting what they did, they had burst the most sacrosanct bond that men could conceive.

Even while giving back before the terrific heat, the hostile warriors wrung their hands and shuddered at the deed. Their hearts were turned to water, their sinews slackened. Only Hengist—like Finnlaf, nephew to the dead king of the South-Danes—could think coherently. Shielding his face with his cloak—his shield was top hot to hold—he ran in to rescue the bodies of the slain. Others, roused by his act, hastened to help him. Not till the two bodies—none moving to rescue the senseless Sigehere—had been dragged without the palisade, and the living also had taken refuge there, did Jute and Dane again confront one another.

Hengist spoke first.

“A frightful thing has been done between us!” he groaned. “With you lies all the guilt, ye dogs of Jutes, honorless ones! Now must this thing be told to King Finn, though the lives of all of us pay for it! My place is with my men. Do thou, Sigurd, ride to the Frisian king with these mes sengers, that he may know the truth!”

“We, too, shall send a messenger!” cried one of the Jutes. “Shall a false tale be told against us?”

“We ask but to tell the truth against you!” Hengist replied sternly. “Not one of you shall go!”

Now the Jutes began to cry out against him; but one of the Frisian messengers, an old, gray-bearded counsellor raised his voice:

“It is not fitting that the news be delayed while ye dispute,” he reproved them. “Nor will Finn wish to hear one side alone; and if men go to him from both sides, then will his grief be marred by unseemly bickerings. It were best that we who are of his own people bear the tidings. Do ye wait here for the king’s will; and do ye refrain from further evil. It will not be long before my king comes to deal with you!”

In silence the Frisians mounted; in silence the others watched them ride off, the old counsellor leading Finnlaf’s riderless horse. Not till they were out of sight did any speak. At last Hengist turned to gaze at the burning hall; and even as he gazed, the roof fell in with a furious billowing of flame and sky-leaping sparks.

“All this the treason of the honorless Jutes has wrought!” he said solemnly. “The life of a man is too short to take revenge enough!”

The Jutes eyed him sullenly.

“If ye seek further vengeance,” one shouted, “seek it now, before your courage cools!”

Without a word Hengist’s men—for he was now heir to Hnaf’s crown and lordship—ranked themselves about him. Having suffered far less in defense than the Jutes in attack, the Danes now numbered six and eighty men, counting the less severely wounded. Seventy-three of the Jutes responded when such officers as were left them—none of the chiefs having survived—marshaled them. The hostile hosts were soon drawn up facing each other, less than a spear’s cast apart. Each watchfully eyed the other, the Danes thirsting to avenge their fallen King, the Jutes reflecting that it were better to go down before Danish steel than to wait for the vengeance Finn would take for his son’s death. Who knew what tale the messengers would bring to him?

Yet, for all their hate, neither party cared to strike the first blow. It was not fear that withheld them—it was the shock of the awful deed that had been done between them—the mutual murder of uncle and nephew. Each side felt itself unclean in the sight of the gods—aye, even the Danes, though the fight had been forced on them. Once more it was Hengist who, after long pause, voiced the feelings of all his men.

“My hands must be washed clean with sacrifice to Odin, and my honor purged of the blood of kinsmen, before I seek vengeance,” he declared. “Let us await the judgment of Finn the Folk-Ruler!”

The Jutes seemed to assent; yet they desired now to resume the fight and end it, one way or the other, before Finn should come up with an overwhelming force of Frisians. Knowing themselves guilty, feeling in their hearts that the king’s son’s blood was on their hands as much as on the dead Hnaf’s, they wanted to give their over charged feelings the relief of battle. In fighting they might, perchance, win a death easier than that Finn would inflict on them when he learned the truth.

For some time they gave their guilty minds to their wretched thoughts; then one of their officers spoke his mind.

“Let us make these Danes fight. Better die in hot blood than in cold!”

A chorus of shouts gave assent; but none raised a weapon. For the Danes stood still, seeming not to heed them—Hengist, in a low voice, having sent word down the line that none should stir a hand unless they were attacked. The Jutes threatened, with out result. Their foes glared with furious eyes, but stirred not.

Desperate, the Jutes began to heap them with evil names, and many a Dane’s fingers closed on his hilt. But Hengist was no longer the rash boy of the night before; almost he seemed to have inherited his uncle’s prudence. With calming words he held his men in check, till the frenzied Jutes raised their spears. Then, since conflict seemed inevitable, Hengist ordered his archers to notch their shafts, and the others to lap shields. The Jutes leaped forward; but before they could close, they came to a disordered stop, glancing about in frightened confusion. The Danes, awaiting their onset, stood firm, expectant of some trick; but in a moment they too became aware of that which had dismayed their foes. In their rear, from the direction of Finn’s hall, a score of horsemen were riding up at full gallop; and from the farther distance came the rumble of a mounted host.

“Finn! The king!” cried the trembling Jutes. “Back, lest he be angered!”

BUT the king was upon them before they could re-align their ranks, which were broken with their advance and its sudden check. Sweeping round the end of the Danish line, he rode at the head of his troop straight between the opposing ranks, his eyes, glowing like an eagle’s, scanning all as he passed. He noted the straight, firm array of the Danes, the broken, shuffling Jutish ranks; saw, too, that the Danes met his eyes full and fair, while the Jutes stared sullenly at the ground. Then he had passed them, saying nothing, not pausing in his course.

To the gate of the palisade he rode, whose posts were even now smoldering in the fierce heat from the glowing embers of the hall. There he dismounted, where, in the long shadow of the gate-post, his son and Hnaf lay side by side in death. Dismounting heavily, the king knelt by the bodies, staring long, tearlessly, at each. Then, his face hard, he mounted, and rode back to the Danes and Jutes, who had not ceased to watch him. He reined in at the head of the two lines and between them, glancing with bitter eyes from one to the other.

His gaze rested at length on one of the Jutish officers, one Wulfhard, who bore the title of First Spear.

“Tell your tale!” he commanded; and Wulfhard spoke.

He repeated Sigehere’s falsehood, accusing the Danes of violating hospitality by luring Wulf and Wigstan to their hall, and attacking them in their cups; saying that only by the favor of Odin had Wulf escaped to lead his troops to the attack, which was justified by the treachery of the Danes. But when he came to tell of Finnlaf’s death, he dared not lie: for in the troop behind the king he saw the five messengers who had ridden out that dawning with the young prince.

When he had done, Wulfhard’s eyes gleamed with triumph, for he deemed that Finn was predisposed to believe the Jutes, else he would not have called for their version first. From him Finn turned to Hengist.

“Speak, my kinsman!” he commanded; and Hengist told all that had happened, truly, concealing nothing.

As he ended, Finn surveyed the confronted warriors long and keenly. When he spoke, his strong old hand plucked at his gray beard.

“When I came up, ye were about to fight again. Who was to blame for that?”

“The Danes, my lord!” Wulfhard cried.

Finn thrust out at him a hand quivering with anger.

“Ye dare say that, and the truth plain for any man to see! When I came up, your ranks were uneven from the haste with which ye withdrew from your onrush, while the Danes stood unmoved, as men that wait attack! In this matter ye have lied, therefore I think ye lied in much that went before!”

He paused; then, with broken voice, he cried—

“Between you, ye have slain my son—my only son!”

“My uncle also is dead!” Hengist returned.

“Aye, your uncle, brother of my wife!” Finn answered. “Uncle and nephew have slain each other; ye Danes have lost your king, and I—my son! There has been enough bloodshed—shall more evil be done for a hatred without cause? What more would ye take from me, having robbed me of that which is dearest?”

Then his blue eyes grew bleak as the frost-hard plain; and he gave utterance to his will.

“It is clear that the Jutes forced this quarrel, in which my son and the king of the South-Danes perished. I would shed as little blood as may be; yet the guilty must be punished. Ye two, Jutes and Danes, shall lay aside this quarrel forever—do ye hear? When ye have given your pledge, then shall the Jutes draw lots to decide which of them shall bear punishment. For every nine white lots there shall be one black. They who draw the black shall be hanged forthwith. For them who are left, and for all the Danes, there shall be free pardon. Is it understood?”

The Jutes cried out in consternation, and some began to clash their weapons. But the plain was now shaking under the hoofs of five hundred Frisian horsemen, whose mail and spears glittered in the frosty light. Resistance there could not be.

The riders came on relentlessly, spread out, and drew a cordon about Jutes and Danes alike. Then, as Finn repeated his judgment to his troopers, they hailed it with deep shouts of approval. The king turned to the Danes.

“Having lost your king,” he said, “and being unable to sail home while Winter lasts, ye must take service with me. Ye are true men, and glad will I be to have you as my guests and servants. You, Hengist, shall be next to me in the kingdom; you and your men shall have another hall as good as this ye have lost. I will in all things treat you well—ye shall have as much gold, as fine weapons, as much honor, as my Frisians. Swear to obey me faithfully, and I will do all that a king may to atone to you for your king’s death. Do ye agree?”

All the Danes waited in silence for Hengist to speak. He was their leader now; he could pledge their lives, their service, their honor.

“I have an uncle to avenge,” Hengist replied. “How can I promise to keep peace and yet preserve my honor?”

“I have a son to avenge,” Finn retorted quietly, “yet I do not ask for Danish blood to appease his spirit.”

Touched by the stricken king’s greatness of heart—and himself, indeed, helpless to take any other course—Hengist strode forward, and touched Finn’s sword in token of loyalty.

“I am your man,” he pledged himself, “and my men are yours.”

“Good!” the King answered. “Disarm these Jutes, cut lots, and build the gallows!”

II

HENGIST sat in the high seat of the hall Finn had given him, communing with his gods. The tall back of his oaken throne brought them very near him, for they were carven out of the very wood of it. Behind Hengist’s right shoulder loomed the bearded head of Thor, god of strife and of vengeance; opposite Thor, on the left, smiled Frey, kindly lord of peace and plenty; in their midst and above them towered the torso of Odin, patron of princes, judge of feuds, wise father of the host of Heaven. Though the All-Father’s thick oak body formed the central part of the chair-back, his head, shaggy and helmeted, bent forward a foot above Hengist’s, ready to whisper counsel to him who sat in the throne of power. Of wisdom the god had a never-failing source, for on his shoulders were perched the images of his ravens, who croaked into his ear all the tidings of the world; and at his flanks fawned the two divine wolves, bearers of the news of battles and slayings. Their curved backs formed the arms of Hengist’s throne: so that behind, above, and on both sides he was surrounded by the divine knowledge and the divine strength.

Great was his need of both; and often had he sought them. The long Winter that had passed since his compact with Finn had eaten deep into his spirit. Young as he was, his cheeks were furrowed, and his brow was lined with bitter care. Both he and Finn had kept their bargain well; naught but fair words had passed between them, and Hengist and his warriors were rich with Frisian gold. In Finn’s wars against the Franks, the Danes had won great honor; but neither gold nor fame could ease the suffering in Hengist’s heart. He slept little; and whenever his exhausted body won sleep, his troubled mind brought before him the vision of Hnaf, bloody and mutilated, crying out for vengeance.

Revenge was the warrior’s first duty, the sacred obligation of a prince; yet Hnaf was dead, and Hengist, his sister’s son, had failed to avenge him. This was the source of Hengist’s trouble: it tortured him in every conscious moment of his life. He did not count it revenge that Finnlaf, the young Frisian prince who, all unwitting, had slain Hnaf, had himself fallen beneath Hnaf’s blade. That was fate; it did not touch the heart of the matter. It was the Jutes who were to blame for Hnaf’s slaughter, and for all that the Danes had suffered. And on the Jutes Hnaf had not been avenged. That Finn had hanged many of them availed Hengist nothing. That was punishment, not vengeance. A man must avenge his own—no other man can avenge for him. By sparing nine-tenths of the Jutes, by continuing to regard and reward them as his servants, Finn had virtually taken on himself the burden of their guilt. By preventing the Danes from renewing the feud, Finn, in the eyes of all Northern folk, had made himself, vicariously, Hnaf’s slayer. And Hengist had pledged his men—Hnaf’s men—to serve Finn. He had had no choice—but that did not mend matters. While the Jutes lived, the red spirit of Hnaf would haunt Hengist’s bed nightly, unable to rest under his grave-mound, though the fire had turned his bones to ashes.

And Hengist could not make the Jutes pay without breaking his oath of service to Finn. That oath had been sworn by all that was most sacred; and Finn’s nobility of soul made the obligations of the Danes to him still holier. If he had been a tyrant, the oath could have been broken with no loss of honor. But Finn was the most generous, the most just, the bravest of lords; wherefore their oath to him could not be broken without a treachery almost equal to that of the Jutes. If Hengist owed a sacred duty to Hnaf’s ghost, he owed a sacred duty to the living Finn.

Hnaf, in whose personal service Hengist had been from his fifth year, had always fostered the spirit of honor in his nephew.

“Courage,” he had often said, “all men have in some measure; it is honor and good faith that win the favor of the gods. Keep your word, if you would be esteemed a man!”

And now the counsel of the living Hnaf strove, in his nephew’s mind, with the dead Hnaf’s ghostly cries for vengeance. All the Winter it had been so, till Hengist’s heart was well-nigh eaten out.

The firelight flickered on the wooden faces of the gods, so that they seemed to nod and whisper to him. Yet no counsel came from their; oaken lips; their favor was turned from him.

The eastern door of the hall opened, letting in the pale sun of early Spring. Guthlaf and Oslaf entered, the fiercest of the Danish warriors. Brothers they were, deeply attached to each other; there had been a third brother, Hunlaf; but he had fallen beneath Wigstan’s knife just before the Jutish assault four months before. He had left a grown son, a strong young man and a brave soldier. This son had a name of his own, but none mentioned it. In their hot desire to avenge their brother, Guthlaf and Oslaf kept the flame of their wrath alive by calling the boy only “Son of Hunlaf,” and all the Danes followed their example. He was thus a living reminder of the unappeased ghosts of the Danish slain.

Hengist looked up, with no welcome in his eyes for these, his bravest officers. The trouble in his breast had been kept alive by their promptings; they would not let him forget that his uncle’s blood cried from the ground in vain. Nor could he bid them be silent, for they were graybeards, and a young man, whether prince or peasant, must yield reverence to his elders.

Straight to the dais they strode, their eyes gleaming with their bloody thoughts.

“It is Spring,” Guthlaf began; and “The harbor is clear of ice,” said Oslaf.

Hengist nodded gloomily.

“One might sail to Denmark now,” added Guthlaf; and in his turn his brother spoke again:

“Today came three ships from Jutland, bearing five hundred more Jutes to take service with Finn. Finn bade them swear to keep peace with us.”

“All this I know,” Hengist answered. “What is it to me?”

“Hnaf is dead,” Guthlaf rebuked him.

“By Odin, that too I know!” cried the harassed prince. “Is there an hour, a moment, that I do not think on it? Give me peace!”

“Our men yearn for home,” Oslaf took up the tale. “Most of them have left wives and children behind, whom they long to embrace once more. They think ever of the fair shores of Denmark, of the sea-girt islands and the green plains, of their friends and dear ones, and—of the shame and dis honor that clings to them here! Every gift they receive from Frisian hands, every glance from Jutish eyes, is a reminder that their king is dead—and unavenged!”

“I have sworn an oath to serve Finn,” Hengist retorted, angrily because his heart burned with the same grief and shame that consumed these two. “That oath binds me; you, who are my men, are bound by any covenant I make. My honor is involved, and my honor is yours.”

It was an argument he had used over and over to the two during that long Winter of suppressed bitterness; but this time Guthlaf and Oslaf were ready for it.

“It was an oath taken under compulsion,” Guthlaf asserted, “and such an oath binds no man. The duty to avenge a man’s murdered kin comes before any oath—surely before an oath extorted under the threat of Frisian spears!”

“Moreover, we are Danes, not Frisians!” Oslaf cried in sudden rage. “We stifle in this alien land! Are we never to see our homes again? Must we eat the bread of exile and drink our tears forever? Are we to lay our bones in Frisian soil, where none will mourn for us? Does your honor compel us to live in shame and die in misery? If you have not the spirit to avenge your dead, or the justice to let us avenge ours, at least give us leave to go home, where we may forget!”

Hengist was stung by the taunt, but his heart softened nonetheless. Well he knew the Dane’s love of his home—had not the sea-girt isles called to him also, all the bleak Winter long? Not a word had these men uttered that he too had not thought and felt, hour by hour, day by day. He longed for revenge as they did; he yearned, like them, for home. However the Dane might wander for trade or booty, he always returned to his hearth. If ever he were moved to settle in a foreign land, he must have wife and children with him, must set up the images of his gods at the gate of the new homestead, must give the familiar Danish names to hill and brook and plain. And here, in a land where every foot of ground was alien, every hamlet bore a Frisian name, there could be no home for Danes.

Guthlaf and Oslaf saw that their words had sunk deep, and wisely forbore to speak further.

“Send Sigurd to me,” Hengist said at last.

Oslaf strode to the door, but his brother remained. Soon Oslaf returned, Sigurd of the clan of the Sword-Danes at his side.

No man was more fearless, more cunning with the sword, than Sigurd; and none of the Danes was held so wise. All that Winter he had served his lord without a murmur, fighting at Hengist’s side under the Frisian banner; never had he, like the others, sought to influence his prince’s mind toward vengeance. No spot rested on Sigurd’s honor; and for his integrity and wisdom Hengist revered him above all men, cherishing his counsel. Now Hengist repeated to him all that Guthlaf and Oslaf had said.

“Give me of your wisdom,” the troubled prince concluded. “I know not what to do. To seek vengeance is to break my oath; to let my men go home is to break my word, since I have pledged them to Finn’s service. I have pondered on these things till my heart is dark, and my mind never the clearer.”

Sigurd, a huge man in the prime of life, stroked his flaming beard, and looked to Odin’s image for guidance.

“My lord,” he asked, “have not the gods advised you?”

“They speak not to me!” Hengist replied bitterly.

Sigurd frowned.

“When the gods will not answer, they are angry. You have kept faith with Finn, therefore it is not a violated pledge which stirs their wrath. There can, then, be but one thing which angers them—you have not avenged your uncle’s blood!”

He paused; and Hengist, desperate for help, shot an eager question at him.

“You agree with these?”

His outflung arm swept toward the vengeful brothers.

“I agree with them,” Sigurd answered with slow deliberation. “Two duties bind each man’s honor: the duty to keep a pledged oath, and the duty to avenge the dead. Of these two, the higher duty is to avenge. The gods will forgive a broken pledge, if there is a compelling cause for breaking it; they never forgive a man who leaves his dead unpaid for. A slain man stifles in his grave, bathed in the burning drops of his own blood, till he is ransomed by the blood of the slayer, or the slayer’s kin.”

Hengist pondered on these things.

“Have the gods whispered this to you?” he asked.

“Nay, my lord,” Sigurd answered honestly. “It is the wisdom that life has taught me. I have heard my dead cry out for vengeance, and have avenged them to end their anguish. Does not Hnaf cry out to you?”

Hengist started. This was the very stuff of his dreams, haunted ever by the bleeding vision of his murdered uncle. Was not that vision, after all, a message from the gods?

After long silence, turning his thoughts over in his mind, he turned again to Sigurd.

“My men long for home?” he questioned.

“Aye, as the dead long for revenge! They mutter one to another, whispering the names of their dear ones; they cry out against you, their lord, blaming all their wo, their dead comrades, their wretched exile, on you!”

Sharp as were Sigurd’s words, he spoke calmly; and his answer was like a knife turned in Hengist’s breast. Were they not right to blame him, who had sworn an oath which kept them here in exile, shamefully serving a king whose warriors had stricken down their comrades?

Seeing his emotion, Guthlaf resumed his implacable assault.

“Will you not let us go?” he demanded. “Will you do nothing to ease our wo?”

Hengist shook back his long locks from his eyes, as if to clear his vision.

“I will let you go!” he promised. “But though every word ye utter is as if it came from my own heart, I am not yet sure that ye are right. I must be guided by that which seems honorable to me, not to you; nor can any bear the burden of decision for me. Therefore hear my words:

“Until I am certain that vengeance is holier than my pledged word, I will keep faith with Finn. My oath calls for my service and the service of my men. Our numbers were four-score when I took the oath; therefore I owe him four-score warriors. Ye two, Guthlaf and Oslaf, shall now return to Denmark with half our men; the rest remain with me. Once at home, ye shall send me four-score new men; on their landing here I will let the rest of those who came to Frisia with me sail home under Sigurd’s command. Thus at all times, save during the short space of the voyage thither and back, will the four-score men I owe Finn be here to serve him; and my honor will be clean till I can settle in my own heart the question of my right to avenge my uncle. Are ye satisfied?”

Sigurd, his eyes clouded, would have spoken; but Oslaf laid a hand on his arm. Guthlaf, catching his brother’s glance, nodded.

“We are satisfied,” he answered. “Do you, my lord, obtain Finn’s assent to our sailing. He will not refuse, since we are to send back the full number he expects from us. We sail as soon as he consents.”

“Be it so,” the prince agreed; and the three chiefs left his presence.

Once in the open court, Oslaf turned to his brother.

“Let us speak with the Son of Hunlaf,” he said.

THE Frisian king readily—gladly—approved Hengist’s resolve. By shrewd wisdom as well as by courage had Finn carved out an empire for his people. He had perceived and read the struggle in Hengist’s soul; read, too, the hostile thoughts of Hengist’s warriors. Confident in his judgment of the young prince’s character, Finn believed that Hengist would keep his oath unless goaded beyond endurance by his vengeful officers. Therefore Finn was glad to let these officers take their men back to Denmark, where he hoped they would stay forever.

He wanted Danes in his army, for they were the most invincible of spearmen and the most skilful of archers; but he much preferred four-score new men to those who had fought by Hnaf’s side and now burned to avenge Hnaf. The Folk-Ruler was sure he could hold Hengist’s loyalty until all who had come with Hnaf had departed—those who took their places would be easier to handle. He need only pay them enough, and they would be faithful to him.

Therefore, when examination showed that the Winter had shrunk the joints of Hnaf’s ship, in which the Danes had come and planned to return, Finn at once placed a fast long-ship of his own at their disposal. He was eager to have them off, and in particular to see the last of Guthlaf and Oslaf.

Finn’s conduct was well-reasoned; but it failed to take into account one element—the Danish character. Never having fought them, he had not learned that the Danes exceed every other people of the North in their thirst for vengeance. He counted on their love of home, and knew not that they would hate him and all that was his long after a Frisian would have ceased to hate.

THE morning after their talk with Hengist, Guthlaf and Oslaf, with forty men, sailed out of Finn’s haven. Guthlaf held the steering-oar, his brother by his side. The long-ship, her single square sail bellied out with a favorable wind, took the waves with a fine bone in her teeth and a hissing of flung spume.

“Think you it will move him?” Oslaf asked suddenly.

Guthlaf smiled through tight lips.

“It cannot fail to move him. Hengist is honest. Once he says he will strike, his sword will not rest in his sheath till it has drunk deep.”

Oslaf nodded.

“That is true. But will he promise to strike?”

Guthlaf’s eyes glinted.

“Leave that to the Son of Hunlaf!”

Hengist’s decision to send his men home did not ease his heart. The very excitement of their going tore at his troubled spirits; the words of Sigurd gave him no rest. He had stilled his men’s reproaches, but he had not stilled his own conscience. The conflict still raged between his oath to Finn and the duty of vengeance for his uncle’s death.

“Vengeance is more sacred than a plighted oath,” Sigurd had said; and it was this which denied him peace. His strained nerves kept the vision of Hnaf constantly before him; his imagination was raw and festered with the thoughts on which it fed. The more it fed, the more inflamed it grew, till he dreamed every night that his uncle’s ghost stood beside his bed, bathed in blood, torn with wounds, crying out on him for a coward who dared not avenge. With this vision his upright soul wrestled, sustained only by the consciousness that he had been true to his oath to Finn. Aye, but that oath had been extorted from him and his battle-weary little band, oppressed with horror at Hnaf’s fall, surrounded by armed Frisians! And the gods kept silence, the gods, angered because he did not take revenge.

On the fourth morning he woke, exhausted and trembling with the moral struggle that grew the more terrible with sleep, and with the ghastly dreams that came in sleep. His body was drenched in sweat, his hands unsteady. It was in this state that the son of Hunlaf found him.

Hengist had his bed in a small outbuilding devoted to his sole use; the warriors slept in the loft, or on the benches lining three sides of the hall. Every morning one of his officers came to escort him into the hall, where he would give audience to his men, adjust disputes, assign orders for the day, and break his fast with them. This morning it was the turn of the son of Hunlaf to seek his lord.

The young man had something hidden under his cloak; but Hengist, wrung with his spiritual struggle, did not notice. Dully he returned the youth’s greeting, and walked to the hall door, leaning on the arm of Hunlaf’s son. At the dais his escort left him. Hengist sank into the high seat with a gasping sigh. His dreams had shaken him out of self-control.

The two-score Danes still left, destined to leave Frisia as soon as new forces came, clustered between the fire-pit and the dais, the flames shining on their mail. They were full-armed, as it was their duty to be when they appeared before their lord for formal audience. Brighter than their mail gleamed their eyes; but Hengist was too troubled with his own dark thoughts to heed.

When Hengist had mechanically uttered the time-honored words which declared the audience open, the son of Hunlaf strode to the very foot of the dais.

“I have a question to lay before my lord,” he said; and his words fell labored, one by one, for he was greatly excited.

Hengist nodded, scarce hearing.

“It is this,” the Son of Hunlaf continued. “Of two duties, which is the more sacred—to keep one’s oath, or—to avenge one’s dead?”

The words brought Hengist out of his brooding. His eyes widened with consternation; his hands clenched and unclenched on his knees; he drew in his breath hoarsely.

Hunlaf’s son shot a doubtful glance at Sigurd, who smiled back at him, nodding slightly. Mounting the dais in one swift stride, the son of Hunlaf took from beneath his mantle the thing he carried, and laid it gently on Hengist’s lap, so that the prince’s fingers touched it. Closing and unclosing with nervous tension, Hengist’s hands encountered something hard, and grasped it tightly. As soon as his right hand took firm hold, the assembled Danes raised a shout of wild joy.

Hunlaf’s son tinned on them, his eyes blazing with victory.

“He accepts it!” he cried. “Our lord accepts the pledge of vengeance!”

Uncomprehending, Hengist looked at that which he had unconsciously clasped. Recognizing it, he shuddered with sudden realization of its meaning. Across his knees lay a sword, its hilt clutched in his own right hand— the sword of his slain uncle—the sword of Hnaf!

But how had it come there? It had been placed on Hnaf’s funeral pyre, to burn with him, and thus to serve him in the life beyond the grave. Suddenly full understanding came to Hengist. Guthlaf and Oslaf had somehow stolen it from the pyre, and kept it to be used, through Hunlaf’s son, when the time was ripe. And now, in his trouble of spirit, it had been laid in his lap by Hunlaf’s son, where his hand must close on it.

To accept a sword is to accept any obligation that goes with it—to accept the sword of a slain man is to accept the duty of avenging him. A man may evade the duty by refusing the gift; but once his hand clasps its hilt, he has accepted sword and obligation. This rite, which men believed to have been instituted by Odin himself, Rather of the Gods, was thrice holy; and from it there was no appeal.

“The gods have decided!” Sigurd cried; but Hengist, still in the grip of torturing doubt, ventured the appeal that did not exist.

“Let the gods give a sign!” he cried in a shaking voice.

Now at that moment Sigurd, striding forward to protest at Hengist’s doubt, struck his foot against the end of one of the logs burning in the fire-pit. Dislodged, the log dropped one glowing end into the coals; a flame shot up, reflecting full on the carven face of Odin. In the flickering light, the god seemed distinctly to nod, thrice.

“The sign! The sign!” shouted Hunlaf’s son; and Hengist, turning to follow the pointing finger, saw the firelight’s play, and the god’s third nod. Odin had cut the bonds which bound Hengist; the gods had declared for vengeance.

The irrevocable decision came to Hengist like healing to a wound. The responsibility was no longer his; it was Odin’s. The long struggle was over; Hengist’s burden rolled off his shoulders. He felt himself a man again, with a man’s tasks and a man’s strength. Rising to his feet, he brandished Hnaf’s sword in hands that tingled with new power.

“Hear me, All-Father Odin!” he cried; and the jubilant Danes grew still to listen. “Hear me, ye Gods! By Gungnir, spear of Odin, by Odin’s self, by Thor, Frey, and Tyr, I swear that this sword shall not be sheathed till it has drunk deep of Jutish blood, and the spirit of Hnaf shall be appeased!”

The Danes would.have shouted again, but he hushed them with a gesture.

“Hostile ears are keen,” he warned them. “We must be wary if we would succeed.”

All gathered closer about the dais, the chiefs at Hengist’s very feet, their followers as close as they could press. Hengist felt his senses thrill to their eagerness. Decision—any decision—would have brought him relief; the gods themselves having intervened to wrest from him the decision that his own heart most craved, he was now his old, ardent self. His eyes sparkled with the prospect of action; his sinews tautened as for battle. He spoke with a new wisdom, the fruit of his unhappy Winter of self-searching:

“We are too few to venture now; we must wait till Guthlaf and Oslaf send us the new men. Then ye will not return—we shall number a hundred men. I will find some pretext to explain your staying. When the time is ripe, we must find a way to fall on the Jutes alone, before the Frisian host can come to their support. It will be hard; the Jutes will outnumber us nigh six to one. But the gods have chosen the road we must take, and they will guide us along it.”

Sigurd, his eyes lowered, caressed his beard.' At length he looked Hengist full in the face, and spoke that which he had hitherto kept hidden:

“My lord, we shall not be outnumbered. Guthlaf and Oslaf took with them all the gold and precious stuff that Finn has given us since we first came hither. With this treasure they will hire, not four-score, but as many men as the gold will buy—at least fifteen hundred, and ships to bear them hither again. They will wait to sail till the weather is smooth; then they will make all haste. When they are almost within sight of Frisian land, they will cruise offshore till night. Under cover of dark they will land, making for that part of the shore which it is our duty to guard. Finn posts a few Frisians with us for safety’s sake; them we must overpower as soon as we hear the muted notes of Guthlaf’s trumpet. Beyond that our plans are not made—it is for you to complete them.”

In tie gladness of his relieved heart, Hengist did not blame his men for the plot they had made without his knowledge. He seized on it with joy.

“We shall win, then!” he cried. “When Guthlaf’s host lands, we must march swiftly for the highroad where it forks, one branch leading to Finn’s stronghold, the other to the hall of the Jutes. It will be the task of the first detachment to hold the Frisians in play—a perilous duty—while the other overwhelms our foes. But mark ye this: No harm must come to Finn, for he is a man, and has dealt honorably with us. Our quarrel is with the Jutes alone.”

“And on them we will wreak it!” the son of Hunlaf muttered between set teeth.

III

HENGIST’S plans unfolded with utter smoothness; it was plain to all the Danes that the gods fought on their side. Guthlaf and Oslaf, their men’s mail muffled with wadding of woolen strips, landed in hushed silence; then, at the muted sound of the trumpet, the Danish coastguard sprang upon the handful of Frisians detailed to make sure of their good faith. Borne under by numbers, the Frisians were swiftly bound, gagged, and hidden in the thick reeds by the shore. Then Guthlaf led up his men—two thousand hard-bit fighters, mad with war-lust after their four-day confinement aboard ship. But neither Guthlaf nor Oslaf had been too excited to steer their prows for the point where the Danes held guard; not for nothing had the brothers patrolled this point till they knew it in the darkest night. They had even planned the precaution, before their departure, of having Sigurd send out a small boat to listen for the beat of their oars, and guide them in if they missed the proper landing.

As best he could in the night, Hengist surveyed his new men, striding up and down the ranks, issuing orders. He spoke softly, giving his commands to the chiefs as he came to them; all were bidden to reply in whispers, lest the voices of so many be heard by some lurking Frisian.

But the Frisians were all unsuspecting in their dwellings, save those who guarded the shore; and those posted at this point were disposed of. Quickly Hengist led his host straight inland, till he was well-past all the coast-guard; then they turned off toward the royal road. For half an hour they marched along it in silence, setting down their feet softly, taking care not to march in step, lest their footfall be heard.

Hengist halted them at the fork in the road, told off the leaders of one-third the host to march to the royal hall, under Guthlaf and Oslaf, and bade these make a pretended attack.

“Do not close in,” he bade them, “nor come within arrow-range; but shout loudly, clash your weapons, and retreat slowly if the Frisians attack. If they take fright, and keep within the palisade, hold them there as long as ye can. Finn has no more than eight hundred spears on duty; we can achieve our purpose before his runners can rouse the country.”

No instructions were needed for those who were to march with Hengist to the Jutish hall. Their purpose was simple—to attack and to destroy, before Finn could beat off or outmaneuver Guthlaf and Oslaf. This they could surely do. Peace having been made with the Franks, Finn had dismissed the militia that made up the vast bulk of his army, and retained at court only his professional house-carles, the greatest number the royal stores could feed.

Under a moonless sky pricked with tiny stars, the two divisions took their respective roads. No man spoke, all advanced with infinite care. They had even cast aside their scabbards, lest these betray them by clanking against their mail.

They passed no villages; for a hall that has to house many men must stand alone amid the wide fields and pasture lands needed to supply its occupants with food. The cocks were crying their first challenge from distant hamlets when Hengist’s division caught the loom of the Jutish palisade, a deeper shadow against the night, a little down the road.

Fortune held with them. The Jutes had drunk deep that night, and even the sentries slept. The Danes might have rushed the gate unresisted had not a man in the front rank dropped his shield with a clang of iron rim against the beaten earth of the road. Then, stirring in his unlawful slumber, a sentinel challenged; the cry was taken up by another; shouts of alarm and the rattle of mail issued from the palisade; torches flared.

“Storm!” roared Hengist. With a hungry shout the Danes hurled themselves at the gate. Their sheer momentum tore loose its bars, and they plunged within, hurling aside the few guards.

But it was a different matter to rush the hall. They had not prepared torches to fire it, lest the gleam be seen by the distant Frisians, and Finn understand that the attack on his own hall was but a blind to cover Hengist’s onslaught on the Jutes. The Danes must overpower their foes by force of arms.

But these were now awake and arming. Though half-drunk and wholly surprized, the Jutes were veterans, able to cope with sudden attack. By the time the first Danes streamed to the hall-doors, javelin-men manned the loopholes, and the Jutish spearmen, flinging on their mail, snatching up shields and pikes, were rushing to their stations.

The Danish advantage in numbers was partly offset by the shelter afforded the Jutes by their walls. The fight raged savagely at both doors, and at every loophole which the Danes strove to command with massed spear-points. The Jutes could not sally, but they could hold their ground and take sharp toll of their foes.

In the frenzy of midnight battle, Hengist never knew how long the conflict lasted. He knew only that his arm ached with striking; that Hnaf’s sword dripped blood over his hands, his arms, his very shoulders; that he marshaled column after column against the doors without breaking through. But the Jutes, desperately as they fought, were heavy with ale, which clutched at their stomachs and made their breath short. The savagely renewed assaults found them slowly failing. At the tenth onslaught the north door was carried. Over a heap of dead Jutes and Danes, heaped helter-skelter in the last agony, Hengist led his column roaring into the reeking hall. As their spears swept along the bloody floor, the south door gave way, and Sigurd smote lustily through the hedge of spears that still opposed him.

In this moment of near-won victory a messenger from Guthlaf rode up breathless on a horse looted from Finn’s stables. Flinging himself from the saddle, he pressed into the mass of fighting men, forced a way through to Hengist, and made the war-drunk prince hear him.

“Finn sallied out on us!” he gasped. “We are outmanned. Help, or the Frisians will eat us up!” Having given his message, he leaped into the saddle again, and rode back to die.

Hengist’s shouts were lost in the whooping of the exultant Danes, and the anvil clangor of blade on shield. In desperation he sounded his trumpet. At the fourth raucous blast, the yells died down, and the victors held their hands. Nearly half the Jutes were down, dead or wounded past help; the others, backed sullenly against the walls, had cast aside their spears as too long for such desperate work, and bravely held their own with swords and lapped shields. The end was sure, but a stout defense from such formation could endure for hours.

Swiftly Hengist made known the plight of Guthlaf and Oslaf. The Jutes greeted the news with joyous shouts; but Sigurd’s face was grim.

“Must we leave these unfinished?” he cried, pointing his red axe at the Jutes.

“Never!” Hengist answered. “Do you see to them. I will take three hundred men and relieve Guthlaf. If the gods will, we shall drink the victory-cup to Odin together when the next sun sets.”

That sun was rising as he and his three hundred ran from the palisade into the highroad and formed for the march to Finn’s garth. It flashed crimson on their bloodied mail, and sparkled on their wet spears. Swiftly, without pausing to breathe after their struggle in the hall, they struck out on the two-mile road that separated them from their hard-pressed comrades. In their zeal they advanced almost at the double, panting, their laboring chests rising and falling like great bellows.

The shouts and clangor of the fight were loud in their ears when Hengist halted them for a brief rest before they should befit for a second battle. They were full in sight of the conflict, and the spectacle of it made it hard for Hengist to hold them. Held they must be if they were to enter the fray with vigor enough to win.

Before them rose the vast circle of stakes that hedged in the royal enclosure; just above the sharpened points of the palisade rose the gables of the great Frisian hall, the outbuildings—stables, kitchens, servants’ quarters, storehouses, and barracks. Between the gate and the halted array of Hengist struggled the confronting forces of Finn and Guthlaf; the Danes half-surrounded by the greater Frisian host. Guthlaf had marshaled his men in a hollow square, shield touching shield, ranks three deep. About them raged the Frisians, big square-made men in splendid armor, not leaping in and stabbing, but in dense, even ranks, wreaking havoc with their great axes. The sun, now mounting the eastern sky, flashed blindingly from their polished armor.

Finn, master of war-craft, had contrived to lure the Danes within the palisade, and had massed the bulk of his men behind the hall while holding Guthlaf’s men in play at its main entrance—thus taking them at the same disadvantage they had planned for him. Then, leading a lightning attack against the Danish right wing, commanded by Oslaf, Finn had driven them back through tie gate, outflanked them, and cut in with the pick of his veterans between them and the road. His reserves, in a second onslaught, had forced Guthlaf’s command to retire on their hard-pressed comrades.

Guthlaf and Oslaf, by heroic exertions, succeeded only in gaining enough respite to reform their men and maintain a united defensive. Their valor told; but where Finn led in person, his house-carles assailed the Danes with a steady ferocity that rent great gaps in the hard-pressed shield-wall. Bravely as the Danish second and third ranks fed themselves into the breach made by the fallen, the Frisian ride was eating away their living rampart; and soon it must crumble to let in the deluge.

All this Hengist, still halted, saw; saw, too, that the royal hall, the stables, and several of the outbuildings were burning. Guthlaf and Oslaf had penetrated deep into the court with sword and flame before Finn’s greater host had driven them out. From within the palisade still rang the shrieks of tortured horses; the screams of women stabbed through the tumult of the fight.

After this men had breathed deep, and while their limbs still twitched with eagerness, Hengist swiftly formed them into wedge-formation—the “array of Odin.” His red banner with the rampant white horse of Odin was shaken out; the outer ranks leveled their spears for the onset. But the Frisians were aware of them. Shifting his formation, Finn interposed the bulk of his force between Guthlaf and the gate, and led the rest in a swift about-face and advance to meet Hengist. These last, almost equal in numbers to Hengist’s three hundred, he captained himself.

Of all his host, Finn alone was mounted—proof of the effectiveness with which Guthlaf and Oslaf had met his strategy, since he could not spare even his grooms from the fighting to rescue the horses from the burning stables. Alone before his front rank the old king rode, a mighty figure of a man, for all his eight-and-fifty years. He wore no cloak above the bloodied mail of his massive chest; his thick, hard arms were bare from the elbow; his lightly silvered yellow beard bushed about thin lips; and his blue eyes gleamed frostily. Holding in his excited horse with his left hand, he held his broad sword lightly in his right; his shield clanged against the steel rings on his back. Slowly, in silence, he led his men to meet Hengist’s straining wedge, held back as if choosing the moment when their onrush would be most devastating.

But Hengist still held them when Finn halted the Frisian ranks. That stern figure, with its broad, set face, its glittering eyes, held his spirit bound; the remembrance of his oath rose again to torture him. This Finn was a man, a man of men, and with him Hengist had not kept faith. The broken pledge gave Finn a moment’s advantage, which he saw, and used.

The solitary figure on the great horse was now a fair spear-cast from the point of the Danish wedge; the Frisians were ranked a little behind them. In their rear the battle still swayed and clamored, Frisians using every moment of respite, Danes holding stubbornly against numbers that now were even, and wondering as they fought why Hengist did not charge.

Raising his wet sword in a commanding gesture, Finn spoke; his voice boomed through the din like thunder through the chatter of a crowd:

“End this slaughter, Hengist! Why should good men die for us? Man to man, blade to blade, let us settle our own quarrel!”

Hengist thrilled to the challenge; yet he was unwilling.

“There is blood between me and thee,” he answered, “and an oath which I have broken. I did right to break it: the gods bade me, and I was bound to avenge my dead. Yet how shall I fight you when I have broken faith with you?”

Finn’s gesture seemed to sweep his words aside.

“Think not of your oath!” he urged. “I wronged you when I made you give it; you have indeed done right to break it. I did not think you would; yet I esteem you the more that you let nothing stand between your honor and the revenge it demands. Join blades with me, and save those who die for us!”

Yet Hengist still hesitated.

“I did not wish your death,” he protested. “I sent my spears against you only to prevent your host from interfering while I avenged my uncle’s murder on your Jutes. Your death would be most bitter to me. You are husband to my uncle’s sister; you have been faithful and gracious to me; you are such a man as the earth has seldom seen. Call off your spears; let my men go in peace. Why should the blood of Jutes stand between us?”

Finn’s eyes glowed.

“Duty to your uncle’s ghost binds you,” he answered slowly. “Duty to those who have taken my wage binds me. Think you I would leave to your swords those Jutes who have served me? This fight must go on till Dane or Frisian fall. Better that the death of one of us should end it than that a thousand men should perish!”

Hengist nodded.

“So be it,” he agreed. “It is the way of honor. If I slay you, your men are to lay down their arms; all that is yours shall pass into our hands, save only that the lives and liberty of the Frisians shall be spared. The Jutes, dead or alive, shall be ours to deal with. Now rescue your women and your horses!”

“That is fair,” Finn assented. “And if I prevail, then your men’s lives shall be spared, but all that they have shall be mine; and such Jutes as ye have not already slain shall live. Sigwald, sound my trumpet!”

From the Frisian ranks a horn blew twice; and as a thunderstorm subsides with one last detonation, so the Frisians, with one last flurry of arms, left off their hammering at the tattered square of Guthlaf. The Danes, too, obeyed the signal, understanding that their princes had reached some agrement. Weary arms fell, exhausted men relaxed, casting down their heavy shields with grunts of relief. Dane joined with Frisian to save the Frisian women folk and their beasts from the flaming buildings.

A Frisian herald made known the terms of the bargain between Finn and Hengist. The fight was to be to the death—neither should receive aid. If any man on either side interfered in the duel, the battle should be resumed, and eternal disgrace should stain the name of him who provoked it. That side whose leader fell should, without striking a blow, permit the other to work its will—save that no more lives but Jutish lives should be taken. That which went on in the hall of the Jutes, two miles away, no man could now prevent; it should not count in the bargain.

Dismounting, Finn passed his left arm through the straps of his shield. The warriors all drew away from the two champions, forming a vast circle, in the midst of which the duelists eyed each other warily. Finn’s age caused Hengist no compunction, nor was there need for any. Finn was a mighty warrior, still as agile as a youth, bigger and stronger than the Dane. Many a man, in both hosts, deemed that Finn would conquer.

Swords touched; then, with a ring of steel and clatter of bucklers, the champions closed. For a space the two faced each other full, each with one foot forward, leaning into the stroke, shield high to meet the answering blow. But when their crashing swords had splintered the shields even to the bosses, and blood was spouting from rents in each man’s mail, then they began to circle, dodging beneath cuts and leaping for openings.

Finn strove with all his giant strength, driving home his steel with all his weight, his face a stern mask. Hengist fought with dash and fury, and an elastic strength he had never known before. Hnaf’s sword in his hand seemed to hack and thrust of itself, faster than he was aware of guiding it; it was as if his uncle’s spirit infused his own will into the living steel. So, when Finn leaped suddenly in to strike the young Dane down with one awful back-stroke, Hengist never knew how his own blade licked out to meet the Frisian. The next moment Finn, bored through from breast to back, fell into his arms.

The blood-mist cleared from Hengist’s brain; the passing of his anger left him conscious of a sudden great sorrow. He had won; his men were victorious and safe; the Jutes were in his hands; Hnaf was avenged. Aye; but Finn, his kinsman by marriage, was dying in his arms—and victory seemed almost less bearable than defeat and shame.

Gently he laid the old man down, and bending over him, wiped the bloody froth from his lips. Though death had its hand on him, Finn’s failing eyes saw tears gleaming in those of Hengist; and his hand, so weak now, groped for the Dane’s.

“It is the will of the gods,” he whispered feebly. “Your honor is bright again. Forgive—forgive me that I—made you—take—oath!”

Hengist’s arms tightened about him. He had admired the living Finn; Finn dying by his hand he loved.

“Be tender—to—Hildeburg!” Finn murmured.

For the first time Hengist thought of his aging aunt, Finn’s queen. The first outbreak of war, in which Hnaf fell, had cost her the lives of son and brother; now Hengist had slain her husband. Alone in the winter of her years, what joy was left for her? His heart smote him; his grief for his own deed was greater than he could bear.

Finn read his thoughts.

“Grieve not!” he gasped. “You have—borne yourself—like a man! The gods call me—farewell!”

When the old man was dead, Hengist called Oslaf to him, and sent the chief at top speed, on Finn’s horse, to the Jutish hall.

IV

ABOVE the flat plain sloping to the dreary sea, a single mound of fresh-turned earth uprose. Its crest was concave; and in the sandy bowl rested a huge pyramid of fagots. A pile of weapons crowned that pyramid, gold and silver, jewel-studded neck-bands and twisted rings of gold. In the midst of his splendor lay Finn the Folk-Ruler on his shield, his sword in his nerveless hand.

North of the mound, on horses levied from the countryside, the Frisian warriors waited in serried ranks. On the south were the Danes, each warrior full-armed, to do honor to the dead. Alone against the sky, Hengist stood by the dead king’s bier, torch in hand. It was the will of both peoples that he, at once the slayer and the nearest male kinsman of the dead, should light the funeral-pyre.

But the time was not yet come. Disarmed, guarded by fifty spearmen, the scant two hundred Jutes who still lived when Oslaf brought Hengist’s command to spare them, were marching toward the mound.

From the east they approached it, on foot, each man with arms bound behind his back. On and on they came, silent, the two hosts of horsemen watching them wordlessly. Halted before they reached the mound, so that they should not be screened by it from the gaze of all, they were herded together and encompassed by their guards—equal companies of Danes and Frisians. Long they stood there, none speaking to them. It was Hengist’s will that none should utter a reproach: the sight of the dead should be reproach enough. Let the Jutes look on that which the treason of their leaders had wrought.

From the western foot of the mound, a woman’s wailing rose; and the serried horse men, Danes and Frisians, shuddered at its poignant grief. Slowly, most slowly, her gray hair unbound, the Frisian queen climbed to the foot of the bier. There, in a fearful burst of sobbing, she clung to her slain lord’s feet.

Hengist was by her side, his lips twitching and gray. Not till her sobs came slow and labored did he touch her; then, raising her gently, he gave her into the hands of her women, who led her down the mound.

Hengist held his torch aloft—to the north, then to the south, the east, the west, hallowing the bier. Then he lowered its flame to the pyre. A faint crackling arose; a thin ribbon of smoke spiraled aloft. The breathing of the horsemen seemed as loud as thunder.

At last a clear point of flame shot from the heart of the fagots, licking the bier. At its signal, the mounted men broke into simultaneous motion. Slowly, evenly, they rode about the mound, from north to south, from south to north, chanting softly the funeral-song. Danes and Frisians met and passed before the bound and frightened Jutes, who momentarily expected the spears to strike them down as a death-offering to Finn’s spirit. But the horsemen passed.

Again and again they passed, riding faster and faster, chanting ever louder as the flames swelled above them. Now their song was like the moan of the sea, now like the roll of thunder. Each time they passed in a tumultuous rhythm of hoof-beats and song, the sand flew from their horses’ feet into the faces of the cowering Jutes.

The fire died down and fell in, with a rain of embers, upon the ashes of Finn. Hengist, long since driven down the mound by the heat, approached the Jutes; and from either side the horsemen drew closer to them, till the Danes halted on their right, and the Frisians on their left. The chanting died as Hengist strode forward to face the waiting multitude.

“Finn has risen to the gods,” he announced in solemn tones; and from a Frisian officer, Captain of the Household Troops, came the formal answer—

“He was best of men, kindest of kings, bravest in battle, most glorious in renown!”

Guthlaf, riding out a pace from the Danish ranks, pointed to the Jutes.

“What shall we do with these?” he asked; and his voice was hard with menace. “To morrow we sail home, leaving this land—and we leave no debts unpaid!”

“Give them to us!” the Frisian captain spoke. “Their treason and greed first broke the peace between Frisian and Dane, and prepared all our wo. Let us feed them to the spirit of Finn!”

The Jutes shuddered, understanding the nature of the death implied in this man’s words.

But Hengist, fronting them all, refused.

“They have paid already,” he said. “Hnaf’s spirit is content; and Finn died to save these Jutes. Dearly has their blood been bought; I will not let any spill more of it. And ye, my people—when ye sail home, I sail not with you!”

The Danes cried out in consternation; and Guthlaf fell at his lord’s feet.

“What will you do, my lord?” he implored. “You can not bide here among an alien folk! We must bear the queen back to her father’s people, and who so close to her as you, to console her in her sorrow? Who shall rule over us of the South-Danes but you, our prince, nephew to our king?”

Hengist smiled gravely, sorrowfully, at him.

“You shall take the Lady Hildeburg home,” he answered, “and upon you I lay the charge of her comfort. Let who will rule the South-Danes—I can not. Nor shall I bide with the Frisians, whose king I slew; but I can not go home with you.

“To him whom the fire has borne to Odin”—he pointed upward to the smoking mound—“I swore, an oath; that oath I broke. In honor I broke it; but the breaking was dishonorable. I am forsworn, and one forsworn can not be a king of the Danes. Therefore I must not lead you more, must never see my home again.”

He turned toward the Jutes.

“Unbind them!” he cried. A moment the Danes and Frisians, astounded, did not obey; but at his impatient gesture they carried out his command. Nor were they more dumfounded than the Jutes, who had expected death.

“These Jutes,” Hengist resumed, “by treachery slew my uncle, and by their treachery we were forced to take oath to Finn. In breaking that oath, though we pleased the gods, we were treacherous. The treason of a warrior is not his guilt, but the guilt of his lord, whose order he must obey. Thus on me alone rests all the guilt for our faithlessness and for the death of Finn.

“I can never again lead honorable men—and honorable men ye Danes are, your guilt being on my shoulders. But dishonored men, who, like me, have broken their pledges, I can lead. Ye Jutes, men without honor, will ye take me, who am also honorless, for your lord, as I take you for my warriors?”

Frisians stared open-mouthed; Danes cried out in rage and grief; the Jutes, incredulous, gaped and muttered.

“My uncle’s murder has been wiped out by the toll our swords have taken of you,” Hengist addressed them. “In token that vengeance has been satisfied, I laid Hnaf’s sword on Finn’s pyre, and the fire has eaten it. Will ye be my men?”

A Jutish officer found his voice.

“To what end, my lord? We dare not stay here—the Frisians would slay us; we can not go to our own land, being, as thou hast said, men without honor. What wouldst thou do with us?”

“There are boats,” Hengist replied, “and there are many lands whence fierce adventures beckon. To the west lies Britain, where honorless men may find rich booty, and hard fighting to restore their honor. Fear not; I shall know how to lead you to both—and to teach you to be faithful!”

The Danes entreated, stormed, wept; but Hengist would not be moved. It was the Frisian captain who spoke the mind of his people:

“If your honor is stained, it is yet stained honorably; and honorably do you propose to cleanse it. We will give you ships!”

And so the Danes went home, bearing the sorrow-stricken Hildeburg to her own people.

So, too, on the day following Hengist and his Jutes set forth over the sea to find their honor again. In Kent they found it, and in the blood of Britons did they wash it clean.