presses, and my tale runneth longer than I would.
What will ye?"

Then there arose a murmur, "Tell all, tell all." "Nay," said the Fox,
"All I may not tell; so much did I behold there during the three days'
stay; but this much it behoveth you to know: that these men have no other
thought save to win the Mark and waste it, and slay the fighting men and
the old carles, and enthrall such as they will, that is, all that be fair
and young, and they long sorely for our women either to have or to sell.

"As for their garth, it is strongly walled about with a dyke newly dug;
on the top thereof are they building a wall made of clay, and burned like
pots into ashlar stones hard and red, and these are laid in lime.

"It is now the toil of the thralls of our blood whom they have taken,
both men and women, to dig that clay and to work it, and bear it to
kilns, and to have for reward scant meat and many stripes. For it is a
grim folk, that laugheth to see others weep.

"Their men-at-arms are well dight and for the most part in one way: they
are helmed with iron, and have iron on their breasts and reins, and bear
long shields that cover them to the knees. They are girt with a sax and
have a heavy casting-spear. They are dark-skinned and ugly of aspect,
surly and of few words: they drink little, and eat not much.

"They have captains of tens and of hundreds over them, and that war-duke
over all; he goeth to and fro with gold on his head and his breast, and
commonly hath a cloak cast over him of the colour of the crane's-bill
blossom.

"They have an altar in the midst of their burg, and thereon they
sacrifice to their God, who is none other than their banner of war, which
is an image of the ravening eagle with outspread wings; but yet another
God they have, and look you! it is a wolf, as if they were of the kin of
our brethren; a she-wolf and two man-children at her dugs; wonderful is
this.

"I tell you that they are grim; and know it by this token: those captains
of tens, and of hundreds, spare not to smite the warriors with staves
even before all men, when all goeth not as they would; and yet, though
they be free men, and mighty warriors, they endure it and smite not in
turn. They are a most evil folk.

"As to their numbers, they of the burg are hard on three thousand footmen
of the best; and of horsemen five hundred, nowise good; and of bowmen and
slingers six hundred or more: their bows weak; their slingers cunning
bey