“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 good enough plan if Saxo’s disgust at the filth of the Wendish homes was justified.  Svantevit was a horrid monster with four heads, and girt about with a huge sword.  Up till then the Christian arms had always been stayed at his door, but this time the King laid siege to Arcona, determined to make an end of him.  Some of the youngsters in his army, making a mock assault upon the strong walls, discovered an accidental hollow under the great tower over which the Stanitza flew and, seizing upon a load of straw that was handy, stuffed it in and set it on fire.  It was done in a frolic, but when the tower caught fire and was burned and the