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The women shrieked to their lovers to part the combatants, but in vain. 'Not for worlds! A very fair match and a very fair fight! Take your long legs back, Itho, or they will be over you! That's right, my Smid, don't use the knife! They will be overboard in a moment! By all the Valkyrs, they are down, and Smid undermost!
Well said, Smid! I believe that prefect's quill-driver was humbugging us when he said Asgard was only ten days' sail up. 'Why? asked Wulf. 'I never give any reasons. What's the use of being an Amal, and a son of Odin, if one has always to be giving reasons like a rascally Roman lawyer?
Even Heraclian's rebellion, and Orestes' suspected conspiracy, were to the younger and coarser Goths a sort of child's play, at which they could look on and laugh, and bet, from morning till night; while to the more cunning heads, such as Wulf and Smid, they were but signs of the general rottenness new cracks in those great walls over which they intended, with a simple and boyish consciousness of power, to mount to victory when they chose.
'Settle your philosopher's doubts for yourself. I have made my offer. I should have thought that a man in his senses could give but one answer, much more a mad monk. 'You forget the money matters, prince, said Smid, with a smile. 'I do not. But I don't think the boy so mean as to hesitate on that account.
Smid rose, with a bill in his hand, and looked round him-perhaps to see what was expected of him.
'Save me from those wretches! pointing to the monks, who were peeping into the doorway. Wulf seemed to understand it all in a moment; for, snatching up a heavy whip, he rushed at the foe, and with a few tremendous strokes cleared the doorway, and shut-to the door. Philammon was going to explain and thank, but Smid stopped his mouth. 'Never mind, young one, you are our guest now.
After that, the concern is yours, not ours. 'Monks? said Philammon. 'I am at open feud with the whole order. 'Make friends with them, then, shortly suggested Smid. Philammon writhed inwardly. 'It makes no difference to you, I presume, whom I bring?
And as the men settled themselves again to their oars, one was put into Philammon's hand, which he managed with such strength and skill that his late tormentors, who, in spite of an occasional inclination to robbery and murder, were thoroughly good-natured, honest fellows, clapped him on the back, and praised him as heartily as they had just now heartily intended to torture him to death, and then went forward, as many of them as were not rowing, to examine the strange beast which they had just slaughtered, pawing him over from tusks to tail, putting their heads into his mouth, trying their knives on his hide, comparing him to all beasts, like and unlike, which they had ever seen, and laughing and shoving each other about with the fun and childish wonder of a party of schoolboys; till Smid, who was the wit of the party, settled the comparative anatomy of the subject for them 'Valhalla!
He hid his face and fled, and the gate shut out the revellers from his eyes; and it is high time that it should shut them out from ours also. Some four hours more had passed. The revellers were sleeping off their wine, and the moon shining bright and cold across the court, when Wulf came out, carrying a heavy jar of wine, followed by Smid, a goblet in each hand.
If you had died, no man need have been ashamed to die your death. 'You were there, then? sobbed Philammon. 'We were. 'And what is more, said Smid, as the poor boy writhed at the admission, 'we were mightily minded, some of us, to have leapt down to you and cut you a passage out. One man, at least, whom I know of, felt his old blood as hot for the minute as a four-year-old's. The foul curs!
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