l the jarl comes.
He will hear, or be sent for."

So we went back and got into the doorway, and we could not bar it at
first. But Withelm hewed off the blade of Raven's oar, and I went out
and cleared the folk away for a space, and leapt back; and Havelok and I
got the door shut quickly against them as they came back on it, and we
barred it with the oar loom. That was but pine, however, and it would
not last long.

Outside, the people were quiet for a little, wondering, no doubt, how to
rescue Biorn. He wanted to go out to them, but it did not seem safe just
yet. If they grew more reasonable it might be so.

Then, as we rested thus, Goldberga came quickly, for she saw that her
husband was wounded, and she began to bind his hurts with a scarf she
had. She was very pale, but she was not weeping, and her hands did not
shake as she went to work.

"This is my dream," she said. "Was that the voice of Griffin that I
heard? It does not seem possible; but there is none other who speaks in
the old tongue of Britain here, surely."

"There is no more fear of him," said Havelok, looking tenderly at her.
"Your dream has come true so far, if he was in it. How did it end?"

"We fled to a tree," she said, smiling faintly.

Havelok smiled also, for this seemed dream stuff only to all of us--
all of us but Withelm, that is, for at once he said, "This door will be
down with a few blows. What of that tower of yours, Biorn? Might we not
get there and wait till the jarl comes?"

At that Biorn almost shouted.

"That is a good thought, and we can get there easily. Well it will be,
also, for the men are wild now, and there have been too many slain and
hurt for them to listen to reason."

"Bide you here," said Withelm, "for it is we whom they seek. Then you
can talk to them."

But he would not do that, seeing that we had been put in his charge by
the jarl.

"I go with you," he said. "Now, if we climb out of the window that is in
the back of the house we can get to the tower before they know we are gone."

We went into that chamber where Havelok had once been when he was taken
from the sack, and even as I unbarred the heavy shutter and took it
down, the door began to shake with a fresh attack on it. The trees of
the grove were two hundred yards from the house, maybe, and among them
loomed high and black the watchtower I had seen from the sea. A wide
path had been cut to it, and the moonlight shone straight down this to
the door of