There was no time for asking more now, however, for the shouts of the men round the door ceased, and someone gave orders, as if there was a plan to be carried out.  So I went and looked over on the side where the door was to see what was on hand.

It was about what one would have expected.  They had got the trunk of a tree, and were going to batter the door in.  But now we were all armed, for Raven had brought Havelok’s gear with him when he fetched his own.  He had thought also for Goldberga, and she was sitting in the corner of the tower walls wrapped in a great cloak that she had used at sea, with her eyes on her husband, unfearing, and as it seemed waiting for the end that her dream foretold.

I called the rest, and we looked down on the men.  They saw us, and an arrow or two flew at us, badly aimed in the moonlight.

“Waste of good arrows,” said Havelok; “but we must keep them from the door somehow.”

“Would that the jarl would come,” growled Biorn, “for I do not see how we are to do that.”

“If they do break in,” said I, “any one can hold a stairway like this against a crowd.”

“I do not want to hurt more of these,” answered Havelok, looking round him.  And then his eyes lit up, and he laughed.  “Why, we can keep them back easily enough, after all.”

He went to the tower corner, and shouted to the men below.  Four or five had the heavy log that they were to use as a ram, and they were just about to charge the door with it, and no timber planking can stand that sort of thing.

“Ho, men,” he cried; “set that down, or some of you may get hurt.”

They set up a roar of laughter at him as they heard, and then Havelok laid hold of the great square block of stone that was on the very corner of the wall, and tore it from its setting.

“Odin!” said Biorn, as he saw that, “where do they breed such men as this?”

“Here,” answered Withelm, looking at the sheriff.

Now Havelok hove up the stone over his head, and a sort of gasp went up from the crowd below.  One saw what was coming, and ran to drag back the men with the beam, and stopped short before he reached them in terror, crying to them to beware.  But their heads were down, and they were starting into a run.

“Halt!” cried Havelok, but they did not stay.  “Stand clear!” he shouted in the sailor’s way.

And then he swung the stone and let it go, while those who watched fled back as if it was cast at them.  Down is crashed on the attackers, felling the man whom it struck, and dashing the timber from the grasp of the others, so that one fell with it across his leg and lay howling, while the rest gathered themselves up and got away from under the tower as soon as they might.

Now no man dared to come forward, and that angered Havelok.

“Are you going to let these two bide there?” he said.  “Pick the poor knaves from under the stone and timber, and see to them.”