eply-spurred sides. It was
Ingvar's.

And when we came to the porch, the axe still stuck in the timbers
overhead, and the Jomsburg chief's body lay where I had cast
him--but in the doorway, thin and white as a ghost, stood Ingvar
the king, looking on these things.

He saw me, and gave back a pace or two, staring and amazed, and his
face began to work strangely, and he stepped back into the dim
light of the hall, and leant against the great table near the door,
clutching at its edge with his hands behind him, saying in a low
voice:

"Mercy, King--have mercy!"

Now, so unlike was this terror-stricken man to him who stood in
Hoxne woods bidding that other ask for mercy, and gnashing his
teeth with rage, that I could hardly think him Ingvar, rather
pitying him. I would have gone to him, but Thormod held me back.

"Let him bide--the terror is on him again--it will pass soon."

"Aye, I saw him thus once before in Wessex," said one of our men;
and I knew that this was what Cyneward had told me of.

Very pitiful it was to see him standing thus helpless and unmanned,
while his white lips formed again and again the word of which he
once knew hardly the meaning--"Mercy".

Presently his look came back from far away to us, and he breathed
freely. At last he stood upright and came again to the doorway,
trying to speak in his old way.

"Here have you come in good time, comrades. Where are the
Jomsburgers?"

"Gone," said Thormod, curtly. "Where were you, King?"

Now Ingvar heeded me not, but answered Thormod.

"With Jarl Swend beating off more of this crew. Then I saw the ship
leave, and I knew where she would go. Hard after me are my
courtmen, but I was swifter than they."

Now all this was wearisome to me, for I would fain follow Osritha
in her flight, if I could. So I left Thormod, without a word to
Ingvar, and went to the stables. There were but two horses left,
and those none of the best; but Cyneward and I mounted them, and
rode as fast as we might on the road which he said was most likely
to be taken by fugitives.

We had but two miles to ride, for in the fog that frightened crowd
of old men, women, and children had surely circled round, and had
it lasted would never have gone far from the town.

When they saw us the women shrieked, and what men were with them
faced round to meet an attack, thinking the pirates followed them;
but we shouted to them to hold, as we were friends, though not
before an arrow or