ay.'"

Then old Snorro raised himself and answered Liot in the very words
of Eyjolf:

"'Lay down the good arms thou bearest, and give up also Auda, thy
wife.'"

"'Come and take them like a man, for neither the arms I bear nor the
wife I love are fit for any one else!'" cried Liot, in reply. And
this challenge and valiant answer, though fully expected, charged the
crowded room with enthusiasm. The women let their knitting fall and
sat with parted lips and shining eyes, and the men looked at Liot
as men look whose hands are on their weapons.

"So," continued Liot, "the men made for the crags; but Gisli fought
like a hero, and in that bout four men were slain. And when they
were least aware Gisli leaped on a crag, that stands alone there
and is called Oneman's Crag, and there he turned at bay and called
out to Eyjolf, 'I wish to make those three hundred in silver, which
thou hast taken as the price of my head, as dear bought as I can;
and before we part thou wouldst give other three hundred in silver
that we had never met; for thou wilt only take disgrace for loss of
life.' Then their onslaught was harder and hotter, and they gave
Gisli many spear-thrusts; but he fought on wondrously, and there was
not one of them without a wound who came nigh him. At last, full of
great hurts, Gisli bade them wait awhile and they should have the
end they wanted; for he would have time to sing this last song to his
faithful Auda:

'Wife, so fair, so never-failing,
So truly loved, so sorely cross'd,
Thou wilt often miss me, wailing;
Thou wilt weep thy hero lost.
But my heart is stout as ever;
Swords may bite, I feel no smart;
Father! better heirloom never
Owned thy son than fearless heart.'

And with these words he rushed down from the crag and clove
Thord--who was Eyjolf's kinsman--to the very belt. There Gisli lost
his life with many great and sore wounds. He never turned his heel,
and none of them saw that his strokes were lighter, the last than
the first. They buried him by the sea, and at his grave the sixth
man breathed his last; and on the same night the seventh man
breathed his last; and an eighth lay bedridden for twelve months
and died. And though the rest were healed, they got nothing but
shame for their pains. Thus Gisli came to his grave; and it has
always been said, by one and all, that there never was a more famous
defense made by one man in any time, of which the truth is k