thelred in peace.

Doubtless some flying Danes had brought news of how the battle had
gone, for at once the gates were opened to us, and the chief men
came out and prayed for favour at Olaf's hands, and he told them
that Ethelred their king would take no revenge on them for having
bowed to Swein and his mighty force. So there was rejoicing in
Colchester, for it seemed to the townsfolk that peace had surely
come at last, and with it relief from the oppression of the
thingmen. For these warriors had carried matters with a high hand,
so that no Anglian dared to call them aught but lord--it must be
"lord Dane" if they spoke even to the meanest of the hosts and the
gravest burgher must give way to some footman of Swein's if they
met in street or on bridge. So they were not loved.

Olaf bade the townspeople prove their loyalty by taking all the
Danish warriors who were in the place, and bringing them to him on
the market hill where the great roads cross. Then was fighting in
Colchester for a while, but in the end, towards sunset, there was a
sullen gathering of them enough, and many were wounded.

Then the king went and spoke to them.

"What think you that I will do to you?" he asked.

"Even as we would do to you," one said.

"Hang me, maybe?" said Olaf.

"Aye, what else?" the man answered in a careless way, but looking
more anxious than he would wish one to see.

"I do not hang good warriors," the king said. "What would you do if
I gave you life?"

"What bargain do you want to make?" said the Dane.

"If I put you into a ship and let you go, will you promise to take
a message for me to Cnut, and not to come back to England as foes?"

"If that is all, we will do it," the man answered, while his look
grew less careful, and the other men assented readily enough with
the fierce townsmen and their broad spears waiting around them.

"Go and tell Cnut, then, that Ethelred is king, and how you have
fared. That is all I bid you. Are there any Norsemen among you?"

There were eight or ten among the six-score prisoners, and Olaf
spoke aside with them.

"Go back to our own land and say what you have seen of the dealings
of Olaf Haraldsson with those who fight bravely though against him.
And if when you hear that I have returned to Norway you come and
mind me of today, I will give you a place among my own men."

Then they said that they would fain serve him now; but he would not
have that, and then they said that they w