peace. Enter, and make merry with us,
and to-morrow go your way."

But Haafager made answer:--

"I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words amiss. There is peace
between us, as you say, and we thank you for your courtesy, but the
stains are still fresh upon our swords. Let us camp here without your
walls, and a little later, when the grass has grown upon the fields where
we have striven, and our young men have had time to forget, we will make
merry together, as men should who dwell side by side in the same land."

But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his people
neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened down, fearing there might be
strife, added his words to theirs, saying:--

"Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace between you, that the
blessing of God may be upon the land, and upon both Dane and Saxon"; for
the Abbot saw that the townsmen were well disposed towards the Danes, and
knew that men, when they have feasted and drunk together, think kinder of
one another.

Then answered Haafager, who knew the Abbot for a holy man:--

"Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the cross your people
worship may fall upon our path, so we will pass into the town and there
shall be peace between us, for though your gods are not our gods, faith
between man and man is of all altars."

And the Abbot held his staff aloft between Haafager's people and the sun,
it being fashioned in the form of a cross, and under its shadow the Danes
passed by into the town of seven towers, there being of them, with the
women and the children, nearly two thousand souls, and the gates were
made fast behind them.

So they who had fought face to face, feasted side by side, pledging one
another in the wine cup, as was the custom; and Haafager's men, knowing
themselves amongst friends, cast aside their arms, and when the feast was
done, being weary, they lay down to sleep.

Then an evil voice arose in the town, and said: "Who are these that have
come among us to share our land? Are not the stones of our streets red
with the blood of wife and child that they have slain? Do men let the
wolf go free when they have trapped him with meat? Let us fall upon them
now that they are heavy with food and wine, so that not one of them shall
escape. Thus no further harm shall come to us from them nor from their
children."

And the voice of evil prevailed, and the men of the town of seven towers
fell upon the Da