There was a great shout of “Ahoy,” and I saw from beyond the ring round me the rise and fall of a broad axe, and then Thorgils was at my back, and close behind him was Evan.  More of our men were coming up fast to where they heard the noise; but the foe were minded to make a good fight of it, and only to yield when there was no shame in doing so.

“It is no bad thing to have a good axe at one’s back,” quoth Thorgils in a gruff shout between his war cries as he hewed, and with that I heard the said axe crash on a foe again.

Then I had the chief before me, and his men fell back a little to make way for him to me.  Our swords crossed, and I took his first thrust fairly on the shield and returned it, wounding him a little, and he set his teeth and flew at me, point foremost, with the deadly thrust of the Roman weapon.  That the shield met again, and I struck out over his guard and he went down headlong.  And at that his men made a wild rush on me, yelling.  At that time I saw Thorgils, with a great smile on his face, smite one man to his right with the axe edge, and another on his left with the blunt back of the weapon as he swung it round, and Evan saved me from a man who was coming on me from behind.  That is all I know of the fight, save that it seemed that I heard some cry for quarter, for of a sudden I went down across Erpwald for no reason that I could tell.

It was full daylight when I came round, and the first thing that my eyes lit on was the broad face of Erpwald, who sat by my side with a woebegone look that changed suddenly to a great grin when he saw me stir and look at him.  Then I saw Evan also watching me, with his arm tied up, and I was fain to laugh at his solemn face of trouble.  Whereon from somewhere behind me Thorgils cried in his great seafaring voice: 

“There now, what did I tell you two owls?  His head is too hard to mind a bit of a knock like that.”

Then he came and laughed at me, and I asked what sent me over.

“The pole-axe man hit you with the flat of his unhandy weapon.  It is lucky for you that he was a bungler, however, for there is a sore dint in your helm.”

I sat up and looked round the camp.  There was a knot of captives in its midst, among whom was the chief I had fought, wounded, indeed, but not badly, and our men were eating the enemy’s provender and laughing.  A fire of green brushwood and heather was sending a tall pillar of smoke into the air to tell the watchers on the Poldens and at Watchet that we had done what we came to do.  But here we had to stay till we heard from Ina that we were to join him, and for Erpwald’s sake and Elfrida’s I was not sorry.

He had seen his first fight, and nearly found his end therein.  I do not know how I could have looked Elfrida in the face again had he indeed risen no more from that medley.  But I thought that he made more than enough of my coming to his rescue.  It was only a matter of holding back a crowd till help came.