ead of a man when his
day is done. To him it seemed as if the space of a day had passed ere
he reached the bottom, and in his passing he encountered many dread
dangers from tusk and horn of a myriad evil creatures of the water who
sought to destroy him. Then at length he reached the bottom of that
sinister mere, and there was clasped in the murderous grip of the
Wolf-Woman who strove to crush his life out against her loathsome
breast. Again and again, when her hideous embrace failed to slay him,
she stabbed him with her knife. Yet ever did he escape. His good
armour resisted the power of her arm, and his own great muscles thrust
her from him. Yet his own sword failed him when he would have smitten
her, and the hero would have been in evil case had he not spied,
hanging on the wall of that most foul den,

"A glorious sword,
An old brand gigantic, trusty in point and edge,
An heirloom of heroes."

Swiftly he seized it, and with it he dealt the Wolf-Woman a blow that
shore her head from her body. Through the foul blood that flowed from
her and that mingled with the black water of the mere, Beowulf saw a
very terrible horror--the body of the Grendel, lying moaning out the
last of his life. Again his strong arm descended, and, his left hand
gripping the coiled locks of the Evil Thing, he sprang upwards through
the water, that lost its blackness and its clouded crimson as he went
ever higher and more high. In his hand he still bore the sword that
had saved him, but the poisonous blood of the dying monsters had made
the water of such fiery heat that the blade melted as he rose, and
only the hilt, with strange runes engraved upon it, remained in his
hand.

Where he left them, his followers, and the Danes who went with them,
remained, watching, waiting, ever growing more hopeless as night
turned into day, and day faded into night, and they saw the black
waters of the lonely fen bubbling up, terrible and blood-stained. But
when the waters cleared, hope returned to their hearts, and when, at
length, Beowulf uprose from the water of the mere and they saw that in
his hand he bore the head of the Grendel, there was no lonely scaur,
nor cliff, nor rock of the land of the Danes that did not echo the
glad cry of "_Beowulf! Beowulf!_"

Well-nigh overwhelmed by gifts from those whom he had preserved was
the hero, Beowulf. But in modest, wise words he spoke to the King: