there is
little doubt that he accompanied his master on many of the campaigns
he so vividly describes, gives us a verbatim report of the lecture:

"What wonder," said the bishop, "if the words stick in our throats
and are nigh to stifling us, when such grievous dole is ours! Grieve
we must, indeed, to find in you such a turncoat that naught but
dishonor can come of it. You follow where you should lead, and those
you should rule over, you make your peers. There is nothing to stop
us but our own craven souls, hunt as we may for excuses. Is it with
such laurel you would bind your crown? with such high deed you would
consecrate your reign?"

The King was hard hit, and showed it, but he walked away without a
word. In the night a furious storm swept the sea and kept the fleet
in shelter four whole days, during which Valdemar's anger had time
to cool. He owned then that Absalon was right, and the friends shook
hands. The King gave order to make sail as soon as the gale abated.
If there was still a small doubt in Absalon's mind as he turned, on
taking leave, and asked, "What now, if we must turn back once more?"
Valdemar set it at rest:

"Then you write me from Wendland," he laughed, "and tell me how
things are there."

If little glory or gain came to the Danes from this first
expedition, at least they landed in the enemy's country and made
reprisal for past tort. The spirit of the people rose and shamed
them for their cowardice. When the King's summons went round again,
as it did speedily, there were few laggards. Attacked at home, the
Wends lost much of the terror they had inspired. Before many moons,
the chronicle records, the Danes cut their spear-shafts short, that
they might the more handily get at the foe. Scarce a year passed
that did not see one or more of these crusades. Absalon preached
them all, and his ship was ever first in landing. In battle he and
the King fought shoulder to shoulder. In the spring of 1169, he had
at last his wish: the heathen idols were destroyed and their temples
burned.

The holy city of the Wends, Arcona, stood on a steep cliff,
inaccessible save from the west, where a wall a hundred feet high
defended it. While the sacred banner Stanitza waved over it the
Danes might burn and kill, but the power of Svantevit was unbroken.
Svantevit was the god of gods in whose presence his own priests
dared not so much as breathe. When they had to, they must go to the
door and breathe in the open, a