face, they will yield us their daughters to be our
thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will you be beaten by such? Vikings,
Odinmen, forward!"

His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an
avalanche loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon
the English bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.

At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with the
wind fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The son
of Lodbrok was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his great
battle-axe in the air to catch it again by the handle. In front of them
rode Canute the King; in his hand his gleaming blade, whose thin edge
he tried now and again on a lock of his floating hair, while he laughed
with boyish delight. Once he turned his bright face back over his
shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun:

"Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness
fills a man, he becomes a god!" On, till the bowmen's faces were plain
before them; then suddenly it began to hail,--"the hail of the string."
Arrows! One hissed by the girl's ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang
there quivering with impotent fury. The man on her right made a terrible
gurgling sound and put up his hand to tear a shaft from his throat.
Would they be slain before--Canute rose in his stirrups with a great
shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became a gallop, and the gallop
a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud. How the stones
rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-doomed; he was
falling.

Her cry was cut short by the flashing of a blade before her. They had
passed through the hail and reached the lightning! Throwing up her
sword, she swerved to one side and escaped the bolt. Another faced her
in this direction. The air was shot with bright flashes. Swish--clash!
they sounded behind her; then a sickening jar, as Rothgar's terrible axe
fell. A yell of agony rent the air. Swish--clash! the blows came faster;
her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling
axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and
heavier,--they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her
like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger
followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her
foam-flecked horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring,
dazed, stunned.

Her wits were like a flock of birds