But they hung back yet, and he called them “nidring.”

Thereat two or three made a step forward, and one said, “Lord, let us do as you bid us, and harm us not.”

“You are safe,” he answered, and Biorn laughed and said that this was the most wholesome word that he had heard tonight.

“Lord, forsooth!  Mighty little of that was there five minutes ago.”

But it was not the terrible stone throwing only that wrung this from them, as I think.  They had seen Havelok in his arms, with the light of battle on his face in the broad moonlight, and knew him for a king among men.

They took the hurt men from under the tower, and then crowded together, watching us.  And some man must needs loose an arrow at us, and it rang on my mail, and that let loose the crowd again.  Soon we had to shelter under the battlement, but they were not able to lodge any arrows among us, for that is a bit of skill that needs daylight.  Then they dared to get to the timber once more, and we saw them coming.

Havelok took his helm, and set it on his sword point, and raised it slowly above the wall, and that drew all the arrows in a moment.  Then he leapt up, and tore the stone from the other corner; and again, but this time without warning, it fell on the men below, and that wrought more harm than before.  But it stayed them for a time, though not so long, for now their blood was up, and the berserk spirit was waking in them.  Already the third stone was poised in the mighty hands, and would have fallen, when there was a cry of, “The jarl! the jarl!” and along the path into the clearing galloped Sigurd himself, with his courtmen running behind him, and he called on the men to stay.

They dropped the beam at the command, and were silent.  And Sigurd looked up at the tower, and saw who was there, and stayed with his face raised, motionless for a space.  I minded how Mord had stared and cried out when first he saw Havelok, the son of Gunnar, in his war gear.

“Biorn! where is Biorn?” cried Sigurd, looking back on the crowd as if he thought he would be there.

“Here am I, jarl,” came the answer, and the sheriff looked out from beside Havelok.

“What is all this?”

“On my word, jarl, I cannot tell.  Here have I been beset in my own house, and but for your guests some of us would have come off badly.  There were outlanders who fell on us, and, as I think, stirred up the folk to carry on the business, telling them that we had slain ourselves, as one might say, for it was the cry that we had slain the jarl’s guests.”

“O fools, to take up the word of a chance stranger against that of your own sheriff!” Sigurd cried, facing the people.

“Nay, but the steward said so likewise,” cried some.

“Hodulf’s steward?” said the jarl suddenly; “where is he?”

“Yonder.  Biorn slew him.”

“He was leading this crowd,” said Biorn from above, “tried to force his way into the tower past me, and would not be warned.”