Our triple line bent in like a bow and began to break. The scales of war hung on the turn, when, from the dense belt of trees upon our left, suddenly rose the cry of "Valhalla! Valhalla! Victory or Valhalla!" for which I, who had overheard Jodd's orders, was waiting. These were his orders—that half of the Northmen should creep down behind the belt of trees in their dense shadow, and thus outflank the foe.
Forth they sprang by companies of fifty, the moonlight gleaming on their mail, and there, three hundred yards away, a new battle was begun. Now the Greeks in front of us, fearing for their rear, wavered a moment and fell back, perhaps, ten paces. I saw the opportunity and could bear no more, who before all things was a soldier.
Shouting to some of our wounded to watch the women, I drew my sword and leapt forward.
"I come, Northmen!" I cried, and was greeted with a roar of:
"Olaf Red-Sword! Follow Olaf Red-Sword!" for so the soldiers named me.
"Steady, Northmen! Shoulder to shoulder, Northmen!" I cried back. "Now at them! Charge! Valhalla! Victory or Valhalla!"
Down the slope they went before our rush. In thirty paces they were but a huddled mob, on which our swords played like lightnings. We rolled them back on to their supports, and those supports, outflanked, began to flee. We swept through and through them. We slew them by hundreds, we trod them beneath our victorious feet, and—oh! in that battle a strange thing happened to me. I thought I saw my dead brother Ragnar fighting at my side; aye, and I
