they fought: a remnant spent,
Fled to their camp. Upon its walls their wives
Stood up, black-garbed, with axes heaved aloft,
And fell upon the fugitives, and slew them;
Slew next their little ones; slew last themselves,
Cheating the Roman Triumph. Never since then
Hath Northman fled the foemen.'
Egfrid rose:
'Who saith our kinsfolk of the frozen North
One stock with us, one faith, one ancient tongue,
Pass us in valour? Three days since I saw
Crossing the East Saxon's border and our own
Two boys that strove. The Kentish wounded fell;
The East Saxon on him knelt; then made demand:
"My victim art thou by the laws of war!
Yonder my dagger lies;--till I return
Wilt thou abide?" The vanquished answered, "Yea!"
A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edge
His life-blood rushed.' The pirate chief demurred;
'A gallant boy! Not less I wager this,
The glitter of that dagger ere it smote
Made his eye blink. Attend! Three years gone by,
Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiords
We fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their head
Sidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's child
Despite her father's best. In mist we met:
Instant each navy at the other dashed
Like wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe;
Chained ship to ship, and clashed their clubs all day,
Till sank the sun: then laughed the white peaks forth,
And reeled, methought, above the reeling waves!
The victory was with us. Hakon, next morn,
Bade slay his prisoners. Thirty on one bench
Waited their doom: their leader died the first;
He winked not as the sword upon him closed!
No, nor the second! Hakon asked the third,
"What think'st thou, friend, of Death?" He tossed his head:
"My Father perished; I fulfil my turn."
The fourth, "Strike quickly, Chief! An hour this morn
We held contention if, when heads are off,
The hand can hold its dagger: I would learn."
The dagger and the head together fell.
The fifth, "One fear is mine--lest yonder slave
Finger a Prince's hair! Command some chief,
Thy best beloved, to lift it in his hands;
Then strike and spare not!" Hakon struck. That youth,
Sigurd by name, his forehead forward twitched,
Laughing, so deftly that the downward sword
Shore off those luckless hands that raised his hair.
All laughed; and Hakon's so