"There will be blood at my dying," said Knud. "I will strike for the jarl if all the legions of Cæsar should come."
"Wait," said Ben Ezra. "Thou wilt find a better hour to use thy spear."
"So be it," replied Knud. "Thou art old and thou art wise and thou hatest Romans."
On walked the jarl, but he was thinking, and the thoughts in his mind were heated.
"Where am I now?" he said, but not aloud. "Where is the good ship The Sword? Where are my companions who sailed with me from the Northland? Where is Asgard? I have seen one god, but when shall I look into his face again? When shall I find the maiden who stood by Hilda? My heart is on fire when I think of her. None like her was ever seen in the Northland. O Hilda, canst thou tell me does this thy beautiful companion dwell among the gods? Then will I go to them that I may greet her, for she is mine."
Other thoughts came to be uttered, but he spoke them not, and he walked onward into the deepening gloom. Very dark it was until the moon arose, and he knew not that the Saxons at the inn were inquiring angrily concerning him.
"What are we if we lose our jarl?" said Wulf the Skater. "But for him we had been lost long since. We would have no more help of Odin if our jarl were taken away."
Ben Ezra and Abbas pacified them, and Tostig the Red said to the others:
"There are but few Romans near and they are bound under Caius. What danger to the son of Brander were a drove of these Syrian cattle, even if they were armed?"
"The son of Thorolf was slain by an arrow shot in the dark," said a viking, surlily. "The jarl doeth not well to go among arrows. I would see his face again."