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Now were the dale-dwellers all come together in their weapons, and they were glad of their King and his loveling; and stout men were they all, albeit some were old, and some scarce of man's age. So they were ranked and told over, and the tale of them was over six score who had obeyed the war-arrow, and more and more, they said, would come in every hour.
Hoi! Swend's men! Hoi! Canute's men! Vikings' sons, sea-cocks' sons, Berserkers' sons all! Split up the war-arrow, and send it round, and the curse of Odin on every man that will not pass it on! A war-king to-morrow, and Hildur's game next day, that the old Surturbrand may fall like a freeholder, axe in hand, and not die like a cow, in the straw which the Frenchman has spared him."
"Send round the war-arrow!" shouted Perry himself; and if there was a man or two who shrank from the proposal they found it prudent to shout as loudly as did the rest. Ere the morning light, the war-arrow was split into four splinters, and carried out to the four airts, through all Kesteven.
"He may be Huron; he may be a Seneca-Huron. But we Indians think differently, Loskiel." "What do you think?" "We do not know for certain. But" and the Mohican's voice became quietly ferocious "if a war-arrow ever struck this Wyandotte between the shoulders I think every tree-cat in the Long House would squall at the condoling council." "You think this Wyandotte an Erie in disguise?"
And at Holbeach, and at Spalding, Hereward split up the war-arrow, and sent it through Kesteven, and south into the Cambridge fens, calling on all men to arm and come to him at Bourne, in the name of Waltheof and Morcar the earls. And at every farm and town he blew the war-horn, and summoned every man who could bear arms to be ready, against the coming of the Danish host from Norwich.
So the Aliens burned their houses and slew their old men, and drave off many of their women and children; and the remnant of the men of the Upper-mark with all that they had, which was now but little, took refuge in an island of Mirkwood-water, where they fenced themselves as well as they could for that night; for they expected the succour of their kindred of the Mid-mark and the Nether-mark, unto whom they had sped the war-arrow when they first had tidings of the onset of the Aliens.
Said the captain: "Even so it is with the Goldburg folk: if they raise hand against some of these strong-thieves or man-stealers, he has but to send the war-arrow round about these deserts, as ye deem them, and he will presently have as rough a company of carles for his fellows as need be, say ten hundred of them. And the Goldburg folk are not very handy at a fray without their walls.
"Art thou sure that thou didst see the Jomsvikings?" asked Hakon, when he had listened to the man's tidings. For answer, the peasant stretched out the arm from which the hand had been sundered, saying, "Here is the token that the Jomsvikings are in the land." It was then that Hakon sent the war-arrow throughout the land and speedily gathered together a great force.
The War-arrow had been industriously sent round to all the neighbouring shores, peopled largely at that time with men of Norse blood. As the fleet swept south it had gathered in contingents from every island along the Scotch coast, upon which Viking settlements had been established.
Mighty was the shout of yea-say that arose at that word; and when it was stilled, a grey-head stood up and said: "King Christopher, and thou, our leader, whom we shall henceforth call Earl, it is now meet that we shear up the war-arrow, and send it forth to whithersoever we deem our friends dwell, and that this be done at once here in this Mote, and that the hosting be after three nights' frist in the plain of Hazeldale, which all ye know is twelve miles nigher to Oakenrealm than this."
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