n a flash, for it broke on my eyes the
moment I cleared the thickets of the cover; and as I saw I shouted
and bore down on the throng, calling to my comrades to hasten. Then
the men knew that I was on them.

They yelled to one another, and, without waiting to see if more
followed me, left the lady and the men who fought for her, and
scattered, flying. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do
was to keep them in a mind to fly, and I rode after them. One or
two I rode down; and I heard a wild outcry as some met Werbode and
Erling when they came up. But they did not make for the wood, as I
expected, but for the open heath. They ran like deer up the swell
of a rising ground and passed over it.

When I came to the top of that I saw a wide stretch of bare land
before me, like miles of that which we had passed, hardly
heather-covered, and stony, and over it fled the men. There was no
place where they could hide. And yet before my very eyes they
vanished. One after another they went till but one was left, still
flying. I took my eyes from him for a moment, and he too was gone.
There was not so much as a bustard on the heath, which a moment
before had been full of fleeting figures.

"They are trolls, thane!" cried Erling from beside me.

He, too, had seen the moorland and the men who had gone. Then
Werbode rode up to me, and he looked and gasped.

"They went over this hill! I would swear it!" he said. "Where are
they?"

"I do not know," I answered blankly, and, to tell the truth, with a
bit of a chill down my back. "I should be better pleased if I did."

"See," said Erling, pointing, "there are the mounds wherein they
live. They are trolls;" and with that he began to mutter I know not
what heathen spells against them.

There were little low mounds everywhere, as I saw now.

"Trolls!" said Werbode, with a laugh. "One can't slay trolls. I saw
Wilfrid cut one down, and there he lies even yet."

"Nay, but one can, if so be the sword is rightly charmed," answered
Erling.

"Well, they have gone," said I. "Do you two go and see after these
folk they were attacking, and I will bide here to watch that they
do not come back."

"That is the work of the man, not the master," quoth Erling. "Here
I bide, for I have runes which are of power against any trolls. I
am not afraid."

Nor did he seem so; and I told him to call if but one man showed
himself, and so rode back to the little party we had saved. The man
who I had