nemy
or a countryman--and driving as many cattle as he required to the shore,
where they were immediately slaughtered and put on board without leave
asked or received!

Skarpedin was influenced both by cupidity and revenge. Swart had been
one of the chief leaders of the expedition which had done him so much
damage. To the Springs therefore he directed his course with six
"longships", or ships of war, and about five hundred men.

In the afternoon of a calm day he reached the fiord at the head of which
were the Springs and Swart's dwelling. There was a small hamlet at the
place, and upon this the vikings descended. So prompt and silent were
they, that the men of the place had barely time to seize their arms and
defend their homes. They fought like lions, for well they knew that
there was no hope of mercy if they should be beaten. But the odds
against them were overwhelming. They fell in heaps, with many of their
foes underneath them. The few who remained to the last retreated
fighting, step by step, each man towards his own dwelling, where he fell
dead on its threshold. Swart himself, with a few of the bravest, had
driven back that part of the enemy's line which they attacked. Thus
they were separated for a time from their less successful comrades, and
it was not till the smoke of their burning homesteads rose up in dense
clouds that they became aware of the true state of the fight. At once
they turned and ran to the rescue of their families, but their retreat
was cut off by a party of the enemy, and the roar of the conflagration
told them that they were too late. They drew together, therefore, and,
making a last desperate onset, hewed their way right through the ranks
of their enemies, and made for the mountains. All were more or less
wounded in the _melee_, and only one or two succeeded in effecting their
escape. Swart dashed past his own dwelling in his flight, and found it
already down on the ground in a blazing ruin. He killed several of the
men who were about it, and then, bounding up the mountain side, sought
refuge in a ravine.

Here he lay down to rest a few moments. During the brief period of his
stay he saw several of his captured friends have their hands and feet
chopped off by the marauders, while a terrible shriek that arose once or
twice told him all too plainly that on a few of them had been
perpetrated the not uncommon cruelty of putting out the eyes.

Swart did not remain many moments