"He will soon lose that," replied Anlaf.
"Yes," said the king; "we know a way of curing the folly," when, even as he spoke, a spasm, as of mental agony, passed over him, and he shook like an aspen, but it was gone in a minute.
Was it the fate of his father which was thus avenged?
Every one looked aside and pretended not to notice the fact, and Anlaf, having made his homage, retired, leading Alfgar.
"You see, my son," commenced the old warrior, as he led his recovered boy to his own quarters, "how useless it would be for you to struggle against the tide, such a tide as no swimmer could breast."
"If he could not swim, it would be easy to drown," said Alfgar, and there was such a despairing utterance in his tone, that his father was checked.
The quarters of Anlaf were in the northwestern angle of the camp; they consisted of huts hastily constructed from the material which the neighbouring woods supplied, and one or two tents, the best of which, stolen property, appertained to the chieftain.
Over a wide extent of desolated land, beautiful in its general outline, where the eye could not penetrate to details, looked the prospect. The round gently-swelling Sussex downs rose on the southern horizon, guarding the sea, while around them were once cultivated fields which the foe had reaped, while quick streams wound in between the gentle elevations, crowned with wood, and here and there the mere spread its lake-like form. The sun was now sinking behind the huge rounded forms of some chalk hills in the west, when the camp became gradually illuminated by the light of numberless fires, whereat oxen were roasted whole, and partridges and hares by the dozen, for the Danes were voracious in their appetites.
In Anlaf's quarters one huge fire blazed for all. Alfgar seemed the only silent member of the company; the warriors related their successes, and boasted of their exploits, and the bards sang their ferocious ditties, until all were tired, and the quiet moon looked down upon the sleeping camp.
O the contrast--the calm passionless aspect of the heaven and the human pandemonium beneath.