"There is no going back now. Go forward we must; and if we conquer not, then we perish."
And it was told to Hungwar concerning Wiglaf, and he laughed darkly, and said that Wiglaf was ever good at paying his debts, and that he was a good man slain; but he said nothing of the shame of the nithing's deed.
Now in the morning came messengers to the Danish camp, saying that they were sent by Edmund, the King of East Anglia, to demand why strangers came to his country with fire and sword, and what was the cause of quarrel between them.
"King Edmund seeks not war," they said. "So now either give hostages that you will dwell peaceably during your stay, or else begone."
Then loud and long laughed the viking chiefs; and Hungwar answered—
"This Edmund of thine will treat us as churlishly as he did the son of Sigurd! Now go and bid him come and do homage to us. And tell him to pull down his churches, and to scourge his priests away and to worship Thor; or, by Odin and his friends, there shall be ruin and death in all the land; and what we have done elsewhere, that will we also do here."
And then Hubba spake, and said—
"This Edmund desires hostages, and hostages shall he have"; and he commanded that the heads of all the messengers save one should be struck off and put in a sack. Then he cut off the ears of the last one and bade him go back and give the heads to his king, as a present from the sea-kings, and tell him that so he would be served, if he gave not up his false god.
But the Saxon was noble and brave; and, though he was alone and in sore pain, and the vikings all around, he cast the shame in Hubba's teeth, and he said that neither the King nor his subjects would worship pagan gods or turn from the Lord Christ, let what would follow.