fy him."

"We fear him not," said Harek; "he has no power over us."

"Has he not?" the man roared, facing full upon us; and as he did so
the lightning glared on him, and I saw that his drawn sword was
aloft, and that from its point glowed a blue flame, and that blue
flames also seemed to start from his horse's ears. One-eyed the man
was also, and he glowered on us under shaggy eyebrows.

Harek saw also, and he raised his hand towards the man and signed
the holy sign, crying:

"Speak! who are you?"

Thereat the man gave a hoarse roar as of rage, and his horse
reared, trampling wildly on the loose rocks, and, lo, he was gone
from before our eyes as if he had never been, while the thunder
crashed above us and below us everywhere!

"Odin! the Cross has conquered!" Harek cried again, in a voice that
was full of triumph; and the blood rushed wildly through me at the
thought of what I had seen.

Then Harek's horse shifted, and his hoof struck a great stone that
rolled as if going far down the hill, and then stopped, and maybe
after one could count five came a crash and rattle underneath us
that died away far down somewhere in the bowels of the hill. And at
that Osmund shouted suddenly:

"Back to the hill; we are on the brink of the old mine shaft! Back,
and stay not!"

Nor did we wait, but we won back to the higher ground before we
drew rein.

"We have met with Odin himself," Osmund said when we stopped and
the thunder let him speak.

"Ay, and have driven him hellwards by the might of the holy sign,"
said Harek. "Nearly had he lured us to death, unbaptized as we are,
in that place."

"Come," said Osmund; "I know where we are now. We are well-nigh
under the great fort, and there is a farm near at hand."

We found that soon and the rain came, and the storm spent its fury
and passed as we sat under cover in the stables waiting. Then came
the moonlight and calm, and the sweetness of rain-soaked earth and
flowers refreshed, and we went on our way wondering, and came to
the thane's with the first daylight. And I thought that our faces
were pale and marked with the terror of the things through which we
had gone, and maybe also with a new light of victory {xvii}.

Chapter XIV. King Alfred's Will.

When we came back to Aller, the first thing that I did was to tell
Neot of our meeting with Odin while his wild hunt went on through
the tempest, telling him how that I had feared unwisely, and also
of Harek's bra