ou slain outright," I said; "are you much hurt?"

"I cannot tell," he said. "I believe I am sound in limb, but my
wind is gone. It is ill for a stout man to have mail-clad Danes
hurled on him by heavy-handed vikings."

So he said, gasping, but trying to laugh. And, indeed, he was
unwounded, save for a cut or two, and he still grasped his red
spear in his right hand.

Now I looked on our men, and saw that we might not bide for another
fight. Already some whom the wild joy of battle had kept strong in
spite of wounds were falling among their comrades, and it seemed to
me that wounds were being bound up everywhere.

But there was a token of victory that made these seem as nothing.
In the midst of all Heregar stood with the Dragon banner, and by
his side his son-in-law, Turkil the thane of Watchet, bore the
captured "Raven."

Harek the scald looked at it once, and then went to its heavy
folds, and scanned carefully the runes that were thereon.

"Ho, comrades!" he cried joyfully, "here is a winning that will be
sung of long after our names are forgotten. This is the magic Raven
that was wrought with wizardry and spells by the daughters of
Ragnar Lodbrok. Ill will this news fall on Danish ears from end to
end of England. This is worth two victories."

"I have seen it many times before," said Heregar; "nor is this the
only time that I have tried to win it. But never before have I seen
it hanging motionless as it hung today. There seems to be somewhat
in the tale they tell of its flapping foreboding victory."

"Ay," said Odda. "Today they despised us, and bore it not forward;
therefore it flapped not, seeing that there was no wind where it
hung."

The ealdorman called us together then, and pointed to the Danes who
were massed beyond the river.

"Now it is time for us to go. We have won a good fight, and some of
us are yet alive. It will not be well to lose all by biding here to
be slain to the last man now. Shall we go to Bridgwater or to the
Quantocks, and so to Taunton?"

Then Heregar said:

"To the hills; for we should be penned in Bridgwater between this
force and the other. I think that while we are yonder they will not
do much on this side the Parret; and men will ever gather to us."

Then we took our wounded and went back to the fort--four hundred
men out of six hundred who sallied out, where we thought that none
would return. But how many Danes we left on the field it is hard to
say. Some say six hundr