en out. They had
beaten against our lines as one beats on a wall--hewing out stones,
indeed, but without stirring it. They had more hurt than we.

Odda pushed to my side, and said to me:

"What if we advance towards the hill crest?"

"Slowly, then," I said.

He passed the word, and we began to move, and the Danes tried to
stay us. Then their attack on the rear face of the wedge slackened
and ceased, and they got round before us to fight from the higher
ground. At once Odda saw that an attack in line as they wavered
thus would do all for us, so he swung his hard Devon levies to
right and left on us Norsemen as the centre--maybe there were
twenty of us left at that time--and as the wings swung forward with
a rolling cheer, the Danes crumbled away before them, and we drove
them up the little hill and over the brow, fighting among the
half-burnt watch fires and over heaps of plunder, even to where the
tall "Raven" drooped from its staff.

Then I saw the mighty Hubba before me; and had I not known it
already, one might see defeat written in his face as he looked
across to his ships. His men were back now, and stood on the far
shore, helpless. Then was a cheer from our left, and he looked
there, and I looked also.

Out of the fort came our wounded--every one who could put one foot
before another--a strange and ghastly crowd of fifty or sixty men
who would yet do what they might for England. And with them was a
mixed crowd of thralls and village folk, bearing what arms they
could find on the place whence we drove the first Danes, and forks,
and bill hooks, and heavy staves.

I do not know if the Danes saw what manner of force came to our
help; but I think they did not. Many broke and fled to the ships;
but Hubba's face grew hard and desperate, and he cried to his men
to stand, and they gathered round him and the Raven banner.

Once again our great wedge formed up, and again charged into the
thick of the Danes. Then I faced the great chief, and men fell back
from us to see what fight should be. But from beside me came Odda.

"My fight, Ranald," he said, and strode before the Dane.

His sword was gone--the hilt and three inches of blade hung from
his wrist--and his shield was notched and gashed. His only weapon
was the broad-bladed Saxon spear, ashen shafted, with iron studs
along its length below the head. He was a head shorter than the
Dane, who was, in truth, the most splendid warrior I had ever seen;
and he bor