ed into the camp of
his soldiers. They went straight to the river, and finding the carcase
of the slave, took it for the body of the king; the hissing eddies
having cast it on the bank, dressed in brave attire. Nothing helped
their mistake so much as the swelling of the battered body; inasmuch as
the skin was torn and bruised with the flints, so that all the features
were blotted out, bloodless and wan. This exasperated the champions who
had just promised Fridleif to see that the robbers were extirpated:
and they approached the perilous torrent, that they might not seem to
tarnish the honour of their promise by a craven neglect of their vow.
The rest imitated their boldness, and with equal ardour went to the
river, ready to avenge their king or to endure the worst. When Fridleif
saw them he hastened to lower the bridge to the mainland; and when he
had got the champions he cut down the watch at the first attack. Thus
he went on to attack the rest and put them to the sword, all save Biorn;
whom he tended very carefully and cured of his wounds; whereupon, under
pledge of solemn oath, he made him his colleague, thinking it better to
use his services than to boast of his death. He also declared it would
be shameful if such a flower of bravery were plucked in his first youth
and perished by an untimely death.

Now the Danes had long ago had false tidings of Fridleif's death, and
when they found that he was approaching, they sent men to fetch him,
and ordered Hiarn to quit the sovereignty, because he was thought to
be holding it only on sufferance and carelessly. But he could not bring
himself to resign such an honour, and chose sooner to spend his life for
glory than pass into the dim lot of common men. Therefore he resolved
to fight for his present estate, that he might not have to resume his
former one stripped of his royal honours. Thus the land was estranged
and vexed with the hasty commotion of civil strife; some were of Hiarn's
party, while others agreed to the claims of Fridleif, because of the
vast services of Frode; and the voice of the commons was perplexed and
divided, some of them respecting things as they were, others the memory
of the past. But regard for the memory of Frode weighed most, and its
sweetness gave Fridleif the balance of popularity.

Many wise men thought that a person of peasant rank should be removed
from the sovereignty; since, contrary to the rights of birth, and only
by the favour of fortune,