l active savage succeeded in
clambering up by the rudder unobserved, and leaping on the poop, stood
behind Karlsefin with uplifted club. Karlsefin, without turning quite
round, gave him a back-handed slap under the left ear and sent him
flying overboard. He fell into a canoe in his descent and sank it.

At this juncture a number of the canoes were detached from the fight,
and Karlsefin observed, with much anxiety, that the savages were going
to ransack the houses.

"Would that I were on shore with twenty of my best men!" he said
bitterly. "Send a shaft, Hake, at yonder fellow who leads. It is out
of range, I fear, but--ha! well hit!" he exclaimed, on seeing an arrow
from Hake's prompt hand strike the man full in the back. The savage
fell, and his comrades crowded round him.

By that time others of the canoes had put ashore, and their owners ran
up to the crowd who surrounded the fallen leader.

At this moment an incident occurred which put a most unexpected
termination to the fight.

For a considerable time Olaf's huge pet, Blackie, had viewed the fight
with calm indifference from the heart of a thicket close by, in which he
chanced to be cooling himself at the time. Now, it happened that one of
the many arrows which were discharged by the savages on the offshore
side of the ship glanced from a neighbouring tree and hit the bull on
the flank. Associating the pain resulting therefrom with the group of
savages before him, Blackie at once elevated his tail, lowered his head,
and, with a bellow that would have shamed a thousand trumpets, charged
furiously down upon the foe.

Horror-struck is but a feeble word to indicate the feelings of that foe!
Although, no doubt, some of them might have heard of, perhaps seen, the
ponderous and comparatively quiet bison of the Western prairies, none of
them had ever imagined anything so awful as a little black bull with
tremendous horns, blood-red nostrils, flashing eyes, and cat-like
activity. One awe-struck look they gave it, and then fled howling into
the woods. The sounds were so startling that those of the enemy still
round the ship were panic-stricken and made off by water as fast as
their fellows had escaped by land, leaving the Norsemen victorious!

"Hurrah for Blackie!" shouted Olaf, who was wild with excitement and
delight.

The cheer thus claimed was given with intense enthusiasm, and then the
ship was rowed back to the shore.

Here a great prize was found,