One of the men stirred, and I sprang round hurriedly.  It was the second man, whose sword I had broken.  He had been but stunned, and now sat up as one barely awake, and unaware of what had happened.  I might not slay him now, but quick as I could I took off my own broad leather belt and pinioned him from behind.  He was yet too dazed to resist.  And then I took his dagger from him, and bound his feet with his own belt, dragging him away from his comrade, and setting him against a tree.  There he sat, blinking at me, but becoming more himself quickly.

Then I looked at the other man.  He was dead, for the end of the quarterstaff had driven in his forehead, so madly had I struck at him with all my weight.

And now, seeing that I was cooler and might think more clearly, it seemed to me that it would be bitter to Matelgar that out of his wish to destroy me should come help to myself.  I needed arms, and now I had but to take them from his own armoury, as it were.  Well armed were all his housecarles, and this one I had slain was their captain, and his byrnie of linked mail was of the best Sussex steel, and his helm was crested with a golden boar, with linked mail tippet hanging to protect the neck.  And his sword—­but as my eyes fell on that my heart gave a great leap of joy—­for it was my own!  Mine, too, was the baldric from which it hung, and mine was the seax that balanced it, close to the right hand in the belt.

As I saw that I began to know more of the plans of Matelgar—­for it must be that my hall and all my goods had fallen into his hands, and this was the reward his head man had asked and been given.

And now I minded that this man had been one of those who gave evidence of my lonely rides and secret meetings.  So he had been bought thus, for my sword was a good one, and the hilt curiously wrought in ivory and silver.

Then I made no more delay, but stripped the man of his armour, and also of the stout leathern jerkin he wore beneath it, for I was clad in the rags of feasting garb, as I have said, and hated them even as I threw them aside.  The man was of my own height and build, as it chanced, and his gear fitted me well.  So I took his hide shoes also, casting away my frayed velvet foot coverings into the underwood.

Now once more I stood clad in the arms of a free man and how good it was to feel again the well known and loved weight of mail, and helm, and sword tugging at me I cannot say.  But this I know, that, like the strong man of old our old priest told me of, as I shook myself, my strength and manhood came back to me.

But now, whereas I had been haled from my feasting a careless boy, and had stood before my judges as an angry man, as I look back, I see that from that arming I rose up a grim and desperate warrior with wrongs to right, and the will and strength to right them.

So I stood for a little, and the savage thoughts that went through my mind I may not write.  Then I turned to my captive and looked at him, though I thought nothing concerning him.  But what he saw written in my face as it glowered on him from under the helmet bade him cry aloud to me to spare him.