countless.

"An adder is a small thing to sting a man," said Ingvar in his grim
voice. "Nor will it always hurt him much. Yet if a man is so close
among many that he must needs tread on one, and it bites him, and
in fleeing that he must set foot on another, and again another, and
then more--how will that end?"

I shuddered and turned away.

"In such a place did Ella of Northumbria put my forebear, Ragnar
Lodbrok; and there he sang the song {xiii} we hold most
wondrous of all. There he was set because he was feared, and
Northumbria knows what I thought of that matter. But Beorn goes
here for reasons which you know. And East Anglia shall know what my
thoughts are of those reasons."

Then two men seized Beorn and cast him into that foul pit, stripped
of all things, and the stone fell.

But Beorn moved not nor cried out, and I think that even as
Ulfkytel had boded, stripped of life itself was he before the
bottom of the pit was reached.

So the justice of Ulfkytel the Earl came to pass. But the lies
spoken by Beorn were not yet paid for.



CHAPTER IX. JARL HALFDEN'S HOMECOMING.