He fell at the first, as Owen tells me.  Another has told me that Owen stood across his body and would have fallen with him, but that Stuf drew him away, calling on him to mind his promise concerning me, and so he went back, still fighting, until he stood in the door of the hall.

There Erpwald and his men stayed their hands, like a ring of dogs that bay a boar.  There was a little porch, so that they could not get at him sideways, and needs must that they fell on him one at a time.  It seemed that not one cared to be the first to go near the terrible Briton as he stood, in the plain arms and with the heavy sword my father had given him, waiting for them.  Well do I know what he was like at that time, and I do not blame them.  There is no man better able to wield weapons than he, and they had learnt it.

Then the light of the straw stack went out suddenly, as a stack fire will, and the darkness seemed great.  Yet from the well-lit hall a path of light came past Owen and fell on his foes, so that he could well see any man who was bold enough to come, and they held back the more.

There were but six men of ours in the house behind Owen.

Then came Erpwald, leaning, sorely wounded, on one of his men, and Owen spoke to him.

“You have wrought enough harm, Erpwald, for this once.  Let the rest of the household go in peace.”

“Harm?” groaned the heathen.  “Whose fault is it?  How could I think that the fool would have resisted?”

“As there are fifty men in the yard at this moment, it seems that you were sure of it,” answered Owen in a still voice.  “If you knew it not before, now at least you know that a Christian thinks his faith worth dying for.”

Now, whether it was his wound, or whether he saw that he had gone too far, Erpwald bethought himself, and seemed minded to make terms.

“I wish to slay no more,” he said.  “Yield yourselves quietly, and no harm shall come to you.”

“Let them not go, Thane,” said one of his men, “else will they be off to Ina, and there will be trouble.  You mind what you promised us.”

Now, Owen heard this, and the words told him that he was right in thinking that there was more than heathenry in the affair.  It seemed to him that the first thing was to save me, and that if he could do that in any way nought else mattered much.  It was plain that no man was to be left to bring Ina on the priest for his ill deeds.

“If that is all the trouble now,” he said, therefore, “as we are in your power you can make us promise what you like.  Give us terms at least; if not, come and end us and the matter at once.”

One of the men flew at him on that, and bided where he fell, across the doorway of the porch; none stirred to follow him.

“Swear that you will not go to Ina for a month’s time with any tales, and you and all shall go free,” Erpwald said.

The man who had spoken before put in at once: