Now we stood among the dead and looked in one another’s faces.  There were no Danes among the Jomsburgers, and they had, as it seemed, found the place empty.  Then I thought: 

“Those men who fell at the gate should be honoured, for they have fought and died to give time for flight to the rest.”

And I called Cyneward to me, and we went through the house from end to end.  Everywhere had been the pirates, rifling and spoiling in haste, so that the hangings were falling from the walls, and rich stuffs torn from chests and closets strewed the floors of Osritha’s bower.  But we found no one.

Then said Cyneward: 

“They are safe—­fled under cover of the fog.”

But now broke out a noise of fighting in the streets, and we went thither in haste.  Some twenty Jomsburgers had sallied from a house, and were fighting their way to the ships, for now one could see well enough.  They were back to back and edging their way onward, while the boys and old men tried to stay them in vain.

When they saw us, they broke and fled, and were pursued and slain at last, one by one.  Then were no more of that crew left.

Now Thormod and I went back to the hall, and in the courtyard stood a black horse, foam covered, and with deeply-spurred sides.  It was Ingvar’s.

And when we came to the porch, the axe still stuck in the timbers overhead, and the Jomsburg chief’s body lay where I had cast him—­but in the doorway, thin and white as a ghost, stood Ingvar the king, looking on these things.

He saw me, and gave back a pace or two, staring and amazed, and his face began to work strangely, and he stepped back into the dim light of the hall, and leant against the great table near the door, clutching at its edge with his hands behind him, saying in a low voice: 

“Mercy, King—­have mercy!”

Now, so unlike was this terror-stricken man to him who stood in Hoxne woods bidding that other ask for mercy, and gnashing his teeth with rage, that I could hardly think him Ingvar, rather pitying him.  I would have gone to him, but Thormod held me back.

“Let him bide—­the terror is on him again—­it will pass soon.”

“Aye, I saw him thus once before in Wessex,” said one of our men; and I knew that this was what Cyneward had told me of.

Very pitiful it was to see him standing thus helpless and unmanned, while his white lips formed again and again the word of which he once knew hardly the meaning—­“Mercy”.

Presently his look came back from far away to us, and he breathed freely.  At last he stood upright and came again to the doorway, trying to speak in his old way.

“Here have you come in good time, comrades.  Where are the Jomsburgers?”

“Gone,” said Thormod, curtly.  “Where were you, King?”

Now Ingvar heeded me not, but answered Thormod.

“With Jarl Swend beating off more of this crew.  Then I saw the ship leave, and I knew where she would go.  Hard after me are my courtmen, but I was swifter than they.”