ay. Be quiet."

"Ay, or we will bind you again," said another man shortly.

But neither looked toward me; their eyes were on the road inland,
down which we could not see, for it opened at the end of the wharf.

Now a wounded man or two crawled down that road, and some of the
guard helped them to the ships. They growled fiercely when their
comrades asked how things went, and thereby I knew that it was ill
for the Danes. The houses nearer the wharves were burning one after
another, as they were driven back.

At last there came a rush of Danes down that road, and into the
seaward houses they went, and fired them. Then they came on board
the ships, and bade the ship guard relieve them at the front. More
than one of those who came thus had slight wounds on them, but they
did not heed them.

"Keep still, lad," said my friend as he hurried away. "The men are
savage. We are getting the worst of it--not for the first time."

Savage enough the men were, and I saw that the advice was good; so
I sat down on the steering bench and went on watching. But I was
not long left in peace. The noise of the fight came closer and
closer, and the wounded crept in a piteous stream to us. And then a
man would look to the after line from the ship to the bollard on
the wharf, and leaped on the after deck close to me.

"Out of the way, you Saxon!" he said savagely, and with that sent
me across the deck with a fierce push which was almost a blow; and
that was the spark which was all I needed to set my smouldering
impatience alight.

I recovered myself, and without a word hit him fairly in the face
with all my weight behind a good blow from the shoulder, and sent
him spinning in turn. He went headlong over the edge of the raised
deck, and lit among a group of his comrades, thereby saving himself
from what would have been a heavy fall on his head and shoulders.

"Well hit, Saxon!" shouted a man from the nearest ship, and there
was a great roar of laughter thence.

However, before his comrades, who had been watching the fires they
had lighted, knew rightly how the man had thus been hurled on them,
and were abusing him for clumsiness, he had his sword out, swearing
to end me; and I suppose he might have done so without any of the
others interfering had they understood the matter. But he was a
heavy man, and mailed moreover; whereby three or four were smarting
under his weight. So they fell on him and held his arm, thinking,
no doubt, that h