"Yet it seems to me, earl, that the wide world must have thundered with the tidings. But listen. When the king in his wrath swept north through Saxon Land, Wittikind fled back again to Nordmannia, and all the forest-dwellers stooped beneath the heel of the Frank. At Verden, on the Aller, the king called before him the earls and eldormen of the Saxon folk. They came in a multitude, crying out against Wittikind, who had stirred them to take up the sword, and submitted themselves humbly to the will of the king. Some were thrust forward by their fellows, and many more stood out of themselves to meet, as leaders of the revolt, the expected doom. But the king was in no mood to content himself with so small a vengeance. The blood-mist was before his eyes,--he was maddened by the harrying of the forest-wolves. Of all the high-born Saxons,--four thousand and more earls and eldormen,--not one was spared. In a single day the heads of all were hewn off and their bodies cast into the Aller. The stream flowed red into the Weser,--God grant I soon forget that sight!"
Again Liutrad flung up his arm before his eyes, and stood shuddering. Olvir waited, silent and seemingly calm; but the lines about his mouth drew tense, and his dark eyes gazed past Liutrad into vacancy.
When the son of Erling dropped his arm, Olvir turned on his heel, without a word, and started to lead Zora back to his tent.
"Stay, earl!" exclaimed Liutrad. "The king will be waiting to welcome you."
"He may wait," answered Olvir, very quietly, and he kept on until lost to view beneath the striped viking tilt from which fluttered his starred banner.
When Liutrad, after greeting Floki and the crews, presently ventured to peer into Olvir's tent, he saw him seated beside a torch, alternately reading marked passages in a pair of use-worn books. One of the books was new to Liutrad, both in binding and script; but the other he at once recognized as Otkar Jotuntop's Greek Gospels. At his cry of surprise, Olvir bade him enter and be seated, and then resumed his reading; but now he read aloud.
CHAPTER III
Too baleful vengeance
Wroughtest thou.
WHETTING OF GUDRUN.