On the wane of noon, on the day following the ruin of Bail'-tiorail,
sails were descried far east of Skipness.
Olaus called his men together. The boats coming before the wind were
doubtless his own galleys which he had lost sight of when the
south-gale had blown them against Skye: but no man can know when and
how the gods may smile grimly, and let the swords that whirl be broken
or the spears that are flat become a hedge of death.
An hour later, a startled word went from viking to viking. The galleys
in the offing were the fleet of Sweno the Hammerer. Why had he come so
far southward, and why were oars so swift and with the stained sails
distended before the wind?
They were soon to know.
Sweno himself was the first to land. A man he was, broad and burly,
with a sword-slash across his face that brought his brows together in
a frown which made a perpetual dusk above his savage blood-shot eyes.
In a few words he told how he had met a galley, with only half its
crew, and of these many who were wounded. It was the last of the fleet
of Haco the Laugher. A fleet of fifteen war-birlinns had set out from
the Long Island, and had given battle. Haco had gone into the strife
laughing loud as was his wont, and he and all his men had the berserk
rage, and fought with joy and foam at the mouth. Never had the Sword
sang a sweeter song.
"Well," said Olaus the White, grimly, "well: how did the Raven fly?"
"When Haco laughed for the last time, with waving sword out of the
death wherein he sank, there was only one galley left. Of all that
company of vikings there were no more than nine to tell the tale.
These nine we took out of their boat, which was below waves soon. Haco
and his men are all fighting the sea-shadows by now."
A loud snarling went from man to man. This became a wild cry of rage.
Then savage shouts filled the air. Swords were lifted up against the
sky, and the fierce glitter of the blue eyes and the bristling of the
tawny beards were fair to see, thought the captive women, though their
hearts beat against their ribs like eaglets against the bars of a
cage.
Sweno the Hammerer frowned a deep frown when he heard that Olaus was
there with only the _Svart-Alf_ out of the galleys which had gone the
southward way.
"If the islanders come upon us now with their birlinns we shall have
to make a running fight," he said.
Olaus laughed.
"Aye, but the running shall be after the birlinns, Sweno."
"I hear that there are fifty and nine men, of these Culdees yonder,
under the sword-priest Maoliosa?"
"It is a true word. But to-night, after the moon is up, there shall be
none."
At that, all who heard laughed, and were less heavy in their hearts
because of the slaying and drowning of Haco the Laugher and all his
crew.
"Where is the woman Brenda that you took?" Olaus asked, as he stared
at Sweno's boat and saw no woman there.
"She is in the sea."
Olaus the White looked. It was his eyes that asked.
"I flung her into the sea because she laughed when she heard of how
the birlinns that were under Somhairle the Renegade drave in upon our
ships and how Haco laughed no more, and the sea was red with Lochlin
blood."
"She was a woman, Sweno--and none more fair in the isles, after Morna
that is mine."
"Woman or no woman I flung her into the sea. The Gael call us _Gall_:
then I will let no Gael laugh at the Gall. It is enough. She is
drowned. There are always women: one here, one there--it is but a wave
blown this way or that."
At this moment a viking came running across the ruined town with
tidings. Maoliosa and his Culdees were crowding into a great birlinn.
Perhaps they were coming to give battle: mayhap they were for sailing
away from that place.
Olaus and Sweno stared across the fjord. At first they knew not what
to think. If Maoliosa thought of battle he would scarce choose that
hour and place. Or was it that he knew the Gael were coming in force,
and that the vikings were caught in a trap?
At last it was clear. Sweno gave a great laugh.
"By the blood of Odin," he cried, "they come to sue for peace!"
Slowly across the loch the birlinn, filled with white-robed Culdees,
drew near. At the prow stood a tall old man, with streaming hair and
beard, white as sea-foam. In his right hand he grasped a great Cross,
whereon was Christ crucified.
The vikings drew close one to the other.
"Hail them in their own tongue, Sweno," said Olaus.
The Hammerer moved to the water-edge, as the birlinn stopped, a short
arrow-flight away.
"Ho, there, priests of the Christ-faith!"
"What would you, viking?" It was Maoliosa himself that spoke.
"Why do you come here among us, you that are Maoliosa?"
"To win you and yours to God, pagan."
"Is it madness that is upon you, old man? We have swords and spears
here, if we lack hymns and prayers."
All this time Olaus kept a wary watch inland and seaward, for he
feared that Maoliosa came because of an ambush.
Truly the old monk was mad. He had told his Culdees that God would
prevail, and that the pagans would melt away before the Cross.
The ebb-tide was running swift. Even while Sweno spoke, the birlinn
touched a low sea-hidden ledge of rock.
A cry of consternation went up from the white-robes. Loud laughter
came from the vikings.
"Arrows!" cried Olaus.
With that three score men took their bows. There was a hail of
death-shafts. Many fell into the water, but some were in the brains
and hearts of the Culdees.
Maoliosa himself stood in death, transfixed to the mast.
With a wild cry the monks swept their oars backward. Then they leaped
to their feet and changed their place, and rowed for life or death.
The summer-sailors sprang into their galley. Sweno the Hammerer was at
the bow. The foam curled and hissed.
The birlinn grided upon the opposite shore at the selfsame moment when
Sweno brought down his battle-axe upon the monk who steered. The man
was cleft to the shoulder. Sweno swayed with the blow, stumbled, and
fell headlong into the sea. A Culdee thrust at him with an oar, and
pinned him among the sea-tangle. Thus died Sweno the Hammerer.
Then all the white-robes leaped upon the shore. Yet Olaus was quicker
than they. With a score of vikings he raced to the Church of the
Cells, and gained the sanctuary. The monks uttered a cry of despair,
and, turning, fled across the moor. Olaus counted them. There were now
forty in all.
"Let forty men follow," he cried.
Like white birds, the monks fled this way and that. Olaus and those
who watched laughed at them as they stumbled because of their robes.
One by one fell, sword-cleft or spear-thrust. The moorland was red.
At the last there were less than a score--twelve only--ten!
"Bring them back!" Olaus shouted.
When the ten fugitives were captured and brought back, Olaus took the
crucifix that Maoliosa had raised, and held it before each in turn.
"Smite," he said to the first monk. But the man would not. "Smite!" he
said to the second: but he would not. And so it was to the tenth.
"Good," said Olaus the White: "they shall witness to their god." With
that he bade his vikings break up the birlinn, and drive the planks
into the ground, and shore them up with logs.
When this was done he crucified each Culdee. With nails and with ropes
he did unto each what their god had suffered. Then all were left
there, by the water-side.
That night, when Olaus the White and the laughing Morna left the great
bonfire where the vikings sang and drank horn after horn of strong
ale, they stood and looked across the loch. In the moonlight, upon the
dim verge of the further shore, they could discern ten crosses. On
each was a motionless white splatch.