CHAPTER XXIII
Feeder of foul deeds,
Fey do I deem thee.
LAY OF SIGURD.
Even as the Northman spun about at the cry of the little maiden, his hands were loosening the horn at his belt. His glance rested but a moment on the torrent of Saracen spearmen which was pouring out across the green plain from behind the nearest hill.
"By Thor! three thousand and more, if a man!" he cried, and with the words the horn was raised to his lips. As its warning note blared down to the very donjons of the citadel, he bent out over the battlements, and stared across the roofs of the Saracen quarter to the open space about the Ebro Gate. Even as he looked, a shrill battle-cry rent the air,--"Allah acbar! Allah acbar!"--and in a twinkling all the space about the distant gateway was swarming with armed Saracens, the turbaned warriors surging in a wild mob into the great arch of the gateway.
Olvir's nostrils dilated. "Thor!" he muttered. "The Crane will do well to close the gate with those stinging gnats behind him."
"Oh, Olvir! are they fighting--all those fierce warriors?--and Floki has so few! He will be slain! Hasten--"
"He must fare for himself, king's daughter. But never fear! The horsemen have yet a bow-shot to race, and--heya! look; there's proof the gate is barred."
Great as was the distance, the dry, smokeless air was so clear that Rothada could see with startling distinctness the battle-ebb of the attacking mob as they fell back before the counter-charge of the vikings in the archway. Suddenly the little band rushed into view, their weapons flashing in fierce strokes. The deep viking battle-shout rolled out above the shrill yells of the Moslems, and the giant warriors, forming swiftly in a wedge, hurled themselves like a huge barbed spear-point straight through the thick of the mob.