ome ye to the Thing in good order
kindred by kindred: later on ye shall hear Hrosshild's story as she shall
tell it to me!"

Therewith he led her to a grassy knoll that was hard by, and set her down
thereon and himself beside her, and said:

"Speak now, damsel, and fear not! For now shall one fate go over us all,
either to live together or die together as the free children of Tyr, and
friends of the Almighty God of the Earth. How camest thou to meet the
Romans and know of their ways and to live thereafter?"

She said: "Thus it was: the Hall-Sun bethought her how that the eastern
ways into Mid-mark that bring a man to the thicket behind the Roof of the
Bearings are nowise hard, even for an host; so she sent ten women, and me
the eleventh to the Bearing dwelling and the road through the thicket
aforesaid; and we were to take of the Bearing stay-at-homes whomso we
would that were handy, and then all we to watch the ways for fear of the
Romans. And methinks she has had some vision of their ways, though
mayhap not altogether clear.

"Anyhow we came to the Bearing dwellings, and they gave us of their folk
eight doughty women and two light-foot lads, and so we were twenty and
one in all.

"So then we did as the Hall-Sun bade us, and ordained a chain of watchers
far up into the waste; and these were to sound a point of war upon their
horns each to each till the sound thereof should come to us who lay with
our horses hoppled ready beside us in the fair plain of the Mark outside
the thicket.

"To be short, the horns waked us up in the midst of yesternight, and of
the watches also came to us the last, which had heard the sound amidst
the thicket, and said that it was certainly the sound of the Goths' horn,
and the note agreed on. Therefore I sent a messenger at once to the
Wolfing Roof to say what was toward; but to thee I would not ride until I
had made surer of the tidings; so I waited awhile, and then rode into the
wild-wood; and a long tale I might make both of the waiting and the
riding, had I time thereto; but this is the end of it; that going warily
a little past where the thicket thinneth and the road endeth, I came on
three of those watches or links in the chain we had made, and half of
another watch or link; that is to say six women, who were come together
after having blown their horns and fled (though they should rather have
abided in some lurking-place to espy whatever might come that way) and
one other wom