"Throw down your arms!" he commanded again, when the laughter ceased.
His voice shook with rage.
"Stay!" said Thorleif. "What is your authority?"
The question was put very courteously, if coldly, and it was common sense.
"I am the sheriff of Dorchester. Whence are you that you should defy the king's officer?"
"Pardon," said Thorleif. "It is only at this moment that we have learned that we have so great a man before us. As for your question, we are hungry Danes who are looking for victuals. It is our custom to go armed in a strange land, that we may protect our ships at the least."
"Trouble not for your ships, for none will harm them," Beaduheard said, seeming to be somewhat pacified by the quiet way of the chief. "Set down your arms, and render up yourself and the other ship captains, and the theft of the cattle and damage here shall be compounded for at Dorchester."
Then Thorleif turned to his men and said:
"You hear what the sheriff says; what is the answer?"
That came in a crash and rattle of weapons on round shields that rang over the bay, and sent the staring cattle headlong from where they had been left at the wharf end, tail in air, down the beach. There was no doubting what that meant, and Beaduheard, brave man as he was, if foolish, recoiled. His men were already edging out of the wide space toward the homeward track, and he glanced at them and saw it.