“Forsworn and treacherous!” he cried, in a thick voice that shook with passion.  “The hostages—­chain them and bring them here.  Their friends shall find somewhat waiting them here that shall make them wish they had kept their oaths!”

Then he said to me: 

“Speak out, Ranald, and tell these thanes your news.”

I spoke plainly, and they listened with whitening faces and muttered oaths.  And when I ceased, one cried, hardly knowing what he said, as I think: 

“This outlander rode with Osmund the Dane to bring them on us even now.”

“Silence!” Alfred said; and then in a cold voice he asked me: 

“Where is this Osmund?  I suppose he has fled to his people.”

“That he has not, though he could have done so,” I answered.  “Moreover, the Dane I spoke with said in so many words that this is no host of Guthrum’s.”

At that Alfred frowned fiercely.

“Whose then?  What good is a king if he cannot make his people keep their oaths?”

There was a stir at the door, and the eyes of all turned that way.  And when the thanes saw that the hostages were being led in, with Osmund at their head, a great sullen growl of wrath broke from them, and I thought all hope was gone for the lives of those captives.

“Hear you this?” the king said, in a terrible voice, when the noise ceased.  “By the deed of your own people your lives are forfeit.  They have broken the peace, and even now are marching on us.  Your leader, Osmund himself, has seen them.”

“It is true,” Osmund said.  “We are in the king’s hands.”

Then Alfred turned to the Witan, who were in disorder, and in haste, as one might see, to be gone to their houses and fly.

“You heard the Danish oath taken at Exeter; what is your word on this?”

They answered in one voice: 

“Slay them.  What else?”

“You hear,” said the king to the Danes.  “Is not the sentence just?”

“It is what one might look for,” Osmund answered, “but I will say this, that this is some new band of Danes, with whom we have nought to do.”

“What!” said Alfred coldly; “will you tell me that any Dane in the country did not know that I held hostages for the peace?  Go to.

“See to this matter, sheriff.”

Then the sheriff of Chippenham came forward, and it seemed to me that it was of no use for me to say aught; yet I would try what I could do, so I spoke loudly, for a talk had risen among the thanes.

“What is this, lord king?  Will you slay Osmund the jarl, who has kept his troth, even to coming back to what he knew would be his death?  You cannot slay such a man for the oath breaking of others.”

Then the king looked long at me, and the sheriff stayed, and at first I expected passionate words; but the king’s rage was cold and dreadful now.

“His friends slay him—­not I,” he answered.