"Odin!" he roared, in a voice they had not heard before; but the weapon he lifted was his pole ax, and he rushed forward to the front of his friends.
"I go with him," said Ben Ezra. "It may be his god hath come to help him. Be with me, O Jehovah of strength!"
"We will guard thee at the helm," said Knud and Tostig to Wulf the Skater. "This will be ended speedily. Look at the jarl!"
"He, too, hath a demon!" burst from the lips of Ben Ezra, as he saw Ulric striking. "They go down before him like corn before the reaper."
Sigurd had been smitten to the deck by his own Saxons, and Ulric stood over him with his ax until the son of Thorolf was hidden by corpses of the slain.
Mad with wine and with the fever of the thirst of blood, the rebellious vikings fought on, nor would they yield to the command of the son of Brander.
"We will die!" they said. "But we will first slay thee. It is a feast of swords."
"I would I could spare enough for rowers," said Ben Ezra, "but their blood is on their own heads. The evil spirit destroyeth them."
"Thus endeth the cruise of The Sword!" said Ulric, sadly, when at last he might pause for breath. "Save thee, O Ben Ezra, and Lysias, and these few faithful, there are none living save some for whom the valkyrias are calling. What shall we do? for thou art old. What shall be the end of these things?"
But Tostig and Knud had watched the falling of Sigurd and they were lifting from him the corpses.