Then, too, I remembered the words of the Prior of Bosham concerning martyrs.  And we had been led to speak of them by this very question as to sacrifice to the Danish gods.  So I made up my mind that if I might escape notice, I would do so—­and if not, then would I bear the worst.

So I fell asleep at last.  And what it may have been I know not—­unless the wind as it eddied through the high windows clashed some weapon against shield on the walls with a clear ringing sound—­but I woke with the voice of Bosham bell in my ears—­and Rorik and Halfden each in his place started also, and Rorik muttered a curse before he lay down again, for he sat up, looking wildly.

But greatly cheered with that token was I, for I knew that help was not far from me, and after that I had no more fear, but slept peacefully, though I thought it was like to be my last night on earth.

CHAPTER X. WHAT BEFELL AT THE GREAT SACRIFICE.

Very early in the gray morning Halfden woke me, and he was fully armed, while at the lower end of the hall the courtmen were rising and arming themselves also, for Vikings must greet Odin as warriors ready to do battle for him when Ragnaroek {xvi} and the last great fight shall come.

“Rise and arm yourself,” he said; “here are the arms in which you fought well in your first fight, and axe and sword beside.  Now you shall stand with our crew, and so none of them will heed you, for they love you, and know your ways are not as ours.  So will all be well.”

Then I thanked him, for I surely thought it would be so; and I armed myself, and that man who had been my own shield man when I led the midship gang helped me.  One thing only I wished, and that was that I had the axe which Lodbrok made for me, for then, I told the man, I should feel as a Viking again, and that pleased him.

“However,” he said, “I think I have found an axe that is as near like your own as may be.”

And he had done so, having had that kindly thought for me.  Then we went out, for the horns were blowing outside the town in the ash grove where the Ve, as they call the temple of Odin and Thor and the other gods, was.  And overhead, high and unseen in the air, croaked the ravens, Odin’s birds, scared from their resting places by the tramp of men, yet knowing that their share in the feast was to come.

I shivered, but the sound of the war horns, and the weight and clank of the well-known arms, stirred my blood at last, and when we fell in for our short march, Halfden and Thormod, Rorik and myself leading our crew, I was ready for all that might come, if need for a brave heart should be.

Silently we filed through the bare trunks of the ashes, the trees of Thor, where many a twisted branch and dead trunk showed that the lightning had been at work, until we came to the place of the Ve in its clearing.

There stood the sanctuary, a little hut—­hardly more—­built of ash-tree logs set endwise on a stone footing, and roofed with logs of ash, and closed with heavy doors made of iron-bolted ash timber also.  This temple stood under the mightiest ash tree of all, and there was a clear circle of grass, tree bordered, for a hundred yards all round it, and all that circle was lined with men, armed and silent.