“This landing is well,” he thought, “and I am glad to be in Britain. But here I may not linger too long. O Hilda of the hundred years, not yet hast thou visited me. I wonder if thou or the gods could find me this night under this oak tree. Who should tell thee where to come if thou wert seeking me? The gods see everywhere. Biorn sayeth that the gods of Britain are gods of the woods, and we are from the sea. I care not much for wood gods.”
Then he rested, but he arose early and chose the men who were to go with him.
“Guide me to the river and the marsh,” he said to Wulf the Skater.
“I will, O jarl,” said Wulf; “but Tostig saw a wild boar yesterday and he hath gone out after him. A vast one, he sayeth, with tusks like a walrus. He will fight well if they can bring him to a fighting.”
“Let Tostig win his boar,” said Ulric. “We go to the left and we hunt not. I am full of thoughts about this place.”
A score of vikings were with them, and they marched on in order, two and two, as if they had an errand. Grand were the trees, and high, with branches whose foliage made a gloom to walk in.
“Are we nearly at the marsh?” asked Ulric at last. “Here are rocks.”
“I know not, O jarl,” said Wulf. “We came not so far southerly yesterday.”
“Hael, Northmen! Hael! But sound no horn! Who are ye?”
As if he had suddenly arisen through the ledge of rocks before them, upon it stood a tall shape in full armor, spear in hand. From under his helmet tangled white hair fell down to his shoulders, but his right hand, holding the spear, was lifted as by one who giveth a command.
Again he spoke: “I am Olaf, the son of Hakon, of Droningsfiord. Who are ye?”
“Northmen of thine own land,” said the jarl. “I am Ulric, the son of Brander. Our ship, The Sword, lieth at the shore. How camest thou where thou art, and who is with thee?”
“None are with me,” said Olaf, sternly. “We were many, but the Romans have smitten the Saxon shore of Britain and our villages are gone. They have smitten many of the Britons also, and they march to smite them again this day. Tell me, O Jarl Ulric, hast thou seen aught of certain triremes which were to come? I would know if there are more Romans near than I have already counted.”
“One hath perished, as I will shortly tell thee,” said Ulric. “I have seen no other.”
“Good!” said Olaf. “There floateth one in a harbor not far away, but they who came in her are fewer than when they landed. Twain came, with a cohort. One hath sailed. Their force was sent to slaughter the Druids at their great sacrificing, but first they struck our village at our harbor. We fought, but they were too many. I cut my way through the ranks of their lighter spearmen, and they followed me not far because of the nearness of the Britons.”
Olaf was now descended from the rock and was become as one of them. Great was his wonder at the story of the living sand and the trireme.
“The gods of the Britons are strong at times,” he said, “but they are not to be depended on. They have done this because of the great sacrifice, that the Romans may not hinder it. Therefore come thou with me a little distance and I will show thee a matter. The Romans are tangled in a wood. Meddle not thou and thine, however, for thou hast another work to do.”
“I meddle not,” said the jarl, “but I thank these Druid gods. We were closely pushed and in peril when they ensnared the trireme with their sand. I will offend them not, but I would see these great sacrifices and I also would offer my token.”
“That the Druids will forbid thee,” said Olaf. “Follow me quickly to the crown of this ridge, for it is on the bank of the river.”
Even as he spoke there came to their ears a clangor of trumpets, as if many sounded at once.
“Romans!” exclaimed Ulric.
“Sounding first were they,” said Olaf, “but these hoarse ones, very loud, are blown by the Druids. Hear, also, the harping. Now look thou, for thou art a captain.”
The river before them was but narrow, although it might be deep, and on the other side was a broad open space surrounded by a forest with dense undergrowths of bushes, as if it were marshy. In the open was arrayed a cohort of Roman soldiers, well ordered, but beyond and in their front might be seen and heard much larger numbers of such as they were, all disarrayed and scattered by the copses. None assailed the cohort in the open, but all the forest swarmed with half-armed Britons, hurling darts and plying their light blades. Arrows, also, were flying, and there was a great tumult of mingled sound.
“The men in white robes, keeping afar,” said Olaf, “are the Druid priests. This is as an ambush, and the Romans are falling.”
“Their commander hath some wisdom, I think,” said Ulric. “His trumpets call back his men for a retreat. He will escape.”
“He loseth half his force,” said Olaf; “he will lose more as he retreateth.”
Fiercer and fiercer arose the sounds of the combat, the shouting, the howling, the twanging of loud harp strings, and the braying of the trumpets. Hard was it for the vikings that they might not have a part in such a battle.
“The Romans are outnumbered,” said Olaf, “but they fight well. Their retreat will be to the river mouth, where was my village. There have they a camp in our own stockade, and they have also increased it with a rampart of earth and palisades. There we must strike them. It is but a little distance. Come and see.”
“But first,” said Ulric, “I would see the end of this battle, and I would have speech with a Druid concerning the sacrifices.”
“That thou mayest not this day,” said Olaf, “and the Romans are cutting their way through the tumult of half-naked spearmen. Lo, how they slay the Britons! But the ranks of their cohort will be thin when the remnant reacheth the fort. So hath it often been in their warfare in Britain, but each new commander of legionaries cometh here a proud one, thinking only of easy victory.”
“The darts fly in showers,” said Ulric, but Wulf the Skater urged him.
“O jarl!” he exclaimed. “The village! The fort! The trireme! Why wait we here? Let us go with Olaf!”
The jarl answered not, but walked rapidly, and the rocky ledge grew higher as they went; but there came an end of it.
“We have walked far,” said Ulric. “The way of the Romans was shorter. There come they and their array is not broken. I can see their commander ordering them.”
“Thor the Thunderer!” exclaimed Olaf, “what havoc the Britons have made among them! The gods of the Druids have protected their sacrifices.”
“Every Roman left behind hath perished,” said Ulric. “Only these are alive.”
“Not so,” said Olaf. “Not a wounded man or one entrapped hath been slain. He belongeth to the gods at the place of sacrifice.”
“With them as with us,” said the jarl. “That is the old North custom. I have seen men slain at the stone of Odin. He who is captured must lose his head. It is well——”
“Seest thou?” loudly demanded Olaf. “The ruins of our village are yet smoking, although three days have passed. I saw thy ship on the sea yesterday, but knew not of thy landing. I meant to watch for thee or for the coming triremes after seeing the battle.”
“Yonder trireme at anchor,” replied the jarl, “floateth well out from the river mouth. She is large. How shall I take her? For there are yet Romans enough to hold her well. I must come to her by night in The Sword.”
Long and thoughtfully gazed Ulric, studying the position of the trireme and the arrival of the beaten Romans at the fort.
“O jarl,” said Biorn the Berserker, “knowest thou not that I am a fish? The trireme is held but by an anchor and a cord of hemp. Go thou and bring The Sword. When thou art at hand to strike thou mayest have the trireme drifting with the outgoing tide. Strike not when the tide runneth in?
“Thou canst swim,” said Ulric, “and thy seax will sever hemp; but if thou waitest here until I come, how wilt thou know in the dark of my coming, or how wilt thou know where to ply the sharp edge?”
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br /> “When I hear thee whistle thrice,” said Biorn, “as if thou wert calling thy hawk, I will know of thy coming. If the whistle is from this shore, I meet thee here. If it is from seaward, I swim to the trireme. Thou wilt know the hemp is severed when thou hearest my own falcon call.”
“I go with thee, O jarl!” shouted Olaf, eagerly, “that I may be thy pilot.”
“Well for thee, O Biorn the Berserker,” said Ulric; “thou art of the heroes!”
“Here sit I down,” replied Biorn. “It is a pleasant place. I think this taking of the trireme will depend upon thee and thy sword more than upon a man a fish cutting hemp!”
“Haste, now,” said Ulric to his men. “The Sword is far from us and this is to be a night of great deeds, and not of ale and feasting.”
Olaf led, as the guide of their rapid marching, and Biorn sat down upon a rock to gaze at the doings around the river mouth and at the fort.
“There come the Britons out of the woods,” he said to himself. “If they had been well led they would have pursued more closely—only that few care to press too hard upon even the wreck of a Roman army. Now are all the Romans within the stockade.”
The Britons were many, but their prey had escaped them. The camp fort was too strong for them to storm, and their showers of darts flew over the palisades without much harm to any within. The taunting clangor of their harps and trumpets sounded furiously for a while, and then the multitude swiftly vanished as if it had melted away.
“If these Britons had a captain,” said Biorn, “instead of a herd of priests, and if he would arm them well, the Romans would disappear from Britain. But I think Ulric the Jarl will find many swords on yonder trireme. Even now they go out in small boats. Biorn the Berserker will be with him when the Saxons are on the Roman deck!”
* * *
CHAPTER IX. The Taking of the Trireme.
THE NIGHT WAS AT hand when the jarl and his party arrived at the camp, and already all others were around the camp-fires.
“O jarl!” shouted Tostig. “Come thou and see this mighty one! We hauled him hither upon a bundle of branches, and he wearied us with his weight.”
“Never saw I such a one!” exclaimed Ulric, gazing at the great boar which lay at the fire by the spring. “Was he for thy spear alone?”
“For mine!” said Tostig. “Now am I even with thee concerning the white bear, for this one fought as did the son of the ice king. He nearly overcame me after he had slain Nef, the son of Ponda, and had rent him in pieces. He had no wound from Nef.”
“We did watch them,” said a viking, “and to Tostig is the honor. If his spear had broken, as did thine in the bear, I think Tostig would have lost the battle.”
“Then had I felt those great tusks,” laughed Tostig, “But it will take all the night to roast him well.”
“He will roast while we fight,” replied the jarl; “and some of us will eat not of him, but in Valhalla. To the ship, all! We go to attack a Roman trireme. Let those eat now who have not eaten, taking their meat with them. I leave not a sword here!”
“He who would stay behind is nidering!” shouted Tostig the Red. “We will follow our jarl to the feast of swords, and they who return may find the boar roasted. Hael to thee, O jarl! Thou bringest good tidings.”
Not until all were in the ship, however, did Ulric explain to his men fully and carefully the errand upon which they were going. Wild was their enthusiasm, and once more the young and the discontented were satisfied with their jarl.
“He is a son of the gods,” they said, “and he will lead us to victory.”
“Or to Valhalla,” growled Knud the Bear. “Not all of you will eat the roasted boar’s flesh.”
The rowers rowed with power and The Sword went swiftly. Ulric was at the helm, and Olaf was at the prow sending back words of direction. The distance to be traveled was less on the water than on the land, through the forests.
“I would I knew of the doings of Biorn,” said one, as the ship rounded a point and entered the harbor at the river mouth.
The jarl answered not, but shortly he put his fingers to his lips and whistled thrice.
“Row slowly, now,” he said, “till an answer shall come. I am glad the moon is not yet arisen. We go on behind a curtain.”
The jarl’s signal had been heard by a man upon whom was only a belt, to which hung a sheathed seax and a war horn. He stood at the water’s edge at the harbor side.
“The jarl cometh!” he whispered, and he went into the water, making no sound. Before that he had crept along the shore, landward, bearing his arms and his armor, and now he had but sixty paces to swim. The Roman sentinel on the deck of the trireme heard only the ripple of the outgoing tide against her wooden walls.
Knife upon hemp cutteth silently, but soon the sentinel turned with a sharp exclamation, for out of the seaward silence there came a long, vibrating whistle, another, another, and then from the hollow of a dark wave near the trireme there sounded a fourth like unto these three. This last he answered with a shout, and he hurled his pilum at that darkness in the water, but the trireme herself responded with a lurch and a yawing as she began to be swept away by the tide. There were rowers on board, and they quickly sprang to the oars, but they were few and there was yet no steersman. There were many soldiers also, but their officer ordered a number of them to the oars, that he might get the ship under control. When, therefore, there came gliding swiftly out of the shadows the unlooked-for warship of the Saxons she was alongside and her grapplings were made fast with none to hinder.
From the opposite side of the Roman vessel, as it were from the water itself, now sounded furiously the war horn of Biorn the Berserker. Full half of the legionaries rushed in that direction and their hurled spears were too hastily lost in the sea. Terribly rang out the war horns and the battle shouts of the Saxons, but the first man of them on board of the trireme was Ulric the Jarl, and down before his ax fell whoever met him. Close behind him were his followers, so that the nearer Romans were not only surprised, but outnumbered.
Up the side, near the stern, climbed Biorn the Berserker, and for a moment he was alone, so quickly had fallen twain who were there. Taking in hand the helm, “Biorn! Biorn the Berserker!” he shouted. “O jarl, I am here! The ship is ours!” Hard fought the remaining Romans, nevertheless, against such odds, but all the rowers were slain at their oars.
“It is done!” said Ulric. “Silence, all! I have called twice for Biorn. Where is he?”
“O jarl, son of Brander the Brave!” came faintly back from the after deck, “hast thou fully taken this trireme?”
“We have her!” answered Ulric. “Thanks to thee, O Biorn! She is thine!”
“Odin!” shouted back the old berserker. “Then bear thou witness for me, at feast and in song, that Biorn, the son of Nar, the sea king, died not by drowning, but by the driven spear of a Roman, in all honor. I go to Valhalla as becometh me. Rejoice, therefore, and smite thou these Romans once more for me. I die!”
There was a silence of a moment on the ship, but then the oldest viking of all blew triumphantly his horn and shouted: “We have heard! Biorn, the hero, hath gone to the hall of the heroes. He died by the spear, and not a cow’s death. Good is his fortune. Hael to thee, O Biorn! And hael to Jarl Ulric, the leader of men.”
Clashed loudly then the shields and spears, but already Saxon hands were upon the oars and Tostig the Red was at the helm, with Olaf by him. Only it might be a dozen warriors had been named by the valkyrias to go to Valhalla with Biorn the Berserker, but the Romans whose bodies were cast into the sea were ten times as many.
The Sword and the trireme were now going out with the tide into the open sea and into the darkness, but there had been much sounding of trumpets in the camp of the Romans. Few as were the remaining legionaries, they had marched to the shore ready for action. There were small boats at the beach, but it was all too late for any use of these. Those who patrolled and inquired, however, found at the side of a rock a hel
met like a bear’s head, a shirt the hide of a bear, two heavy spears, an ax—the trophies to them of Biorn the Berserker. These were brought to the centurion in command and he examined them with care.
“The pirates of the North are here,” he said. “Woe is me that ever I came to this death coast! Here shall we leave our bones, for the Britons will come like locusts, and we have lost our trireme!”
“Another ship cometh soon,” said his friends. “We may hold the fort well until her arrival. All is not lost.”
“Know ye that?” replied the centurion. “If the trireme of Lentulus were above the water, she would have arrived long since. He hath never failed an appointment. I think it was his evil demon and not the favor of the proconsul that made him the count of the Saxon shore. The fates are against us.”
So darkly brooded the Romans over their many disasters, while Ulric the Jarl ordered the steering of his two ships up the coast and into the cove where he had first landed.
“I would have speech with a Druid, if I may,” he said to Olaf. “It is strongly upon my mind that I must see this great sacrifice to their gods. Manage thou this for me. Thou hast been in league with them.”
“What I can do in such a matter I will do,” said Olaf. “But, O jarl, I have somewhat to say to thee concerning this trireme. Consider her well, for she is a strong warship and there is much room in her.”
“Also much plunder,” said Ulric; “but that must wait for the day. Each man hath his share, and the shares of the slain go to their kindred when we return.”
“So is the North law,” said Olaf; “but where shall any man stow that which may be his prize? The Sword is but a nutshell. Thou wilt think of this matter, for thou art jarl.”
The night waned toward the dawn and all had need of rest. The ships were anchored, therefore, and the cove was still.
The trumpets at the Roman camp greeted loudly the sun’s rising. The sentinels were changed and the patrols came in from the edges of the forest to report that no enemy seemed to be coming. The soldiers sullenly attended to the customary morning duties of the camp, now and then glancing seaward as if they hoped to see a sail. The centurion in command walked along the lines of his intrenchments, studying them, but his eyes more often sought the earth. A stalwart man was he, in splendid armor, and his face bore scars of battle. Well had he fought the Britons the day before, but now he loudly exclaimed:
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