fell one after another before the Wild
Men, and folk drew them by the heels out into the buttery. Then arose
great laughter and jeering, and exceeding wroth was Hallblithe; howbeit
he refrained him because he remembered all he had to do. But the three
Champions of the Sea strode round the hall, tossing up their swords and
catching them as they fell, while the horns blew up behind them.

After a while the hall grew hushed, and the chieftain arose and cried:
"Bring in now some sheaves of the harvest we win, we lads of the oar and
the arrow!" Then was there a stir at the screen doors, and folk pressed
forward to see, and, lo, there came forward a string of women, led in by
two weaponed carles; and the women were a score in number, and they were
barefoot and their hair hung loose and their gowns were ungirt, and they
were chained together wrist to wrist; yet had they gold at arm and neck:
there was silence in the hall when they stood amidst of the floor.

Then indeed Hallblithe could not refrain himself, and he leapt from his
seat and on to the board, and over it, and ran down the hall, and came to
those women and looked them in the face one by one, while no man spake in
the hall. But the Hostage was not amongst them; nay forsooth, they none
of them favoured of the daughters of his people, though they were comely
and fair; so that again Hallblithe doubted if this were aught but a feast-
hall play done to anger him; whereas there was but little grief in the
faces of those damsels, and more than one of them smiled wantonly in his
face as he looked on them.

So he turned about and went back to his seat, having said no word, and
behind him arose much mocking and jeering; but it angered him little now;
for he remembered the rede of the elder and how that he had done
according to his bidding, so that he deemed the gain was his. So sprang
up talk in the hall betwixt man and man, and folk drank about and were
merry, till the chieftain arose again and smote the board with the flat
of his sword, and cried out in a loud and angry voice, so that all could
hear: "Now let there be music and minstrelsy ere we wend bedward!"

Therewith fell the hubbub of voices, and there came forth three men with
great harps, and a fourth man with them, who was the minstrel; and the
harpers smote their harps so that the roof rang therewith, and the noise,
though it was great, was tuneable, and when they had played thus a little
while, they abated