the Wild Men, and folk drew them by the heels out into the buttery.
Then arose great laughter and jeering, and exceeding wroth was
Hallblithe; howbeit he refrained him because he remembered all he had
to do. But the three Champions of the Sea strode round the hall,
tossing up their swords and catching them as they fell, while the
horns blew up behind them.

After a while the hall grew hushed, and the chieftain arose and
cried: "Bring in now some sheaves of the harvest we win, we lads of
the oar and the arrow!" Then was there a stir at the screen doors,
and folk pressed forward to see, and, lo, there came forward a string
of women, led in by two weaponed carles; and the women were a score
in number, and they were barefoot and their hair hung loose and their
gowns were ungirt, and they were chained together wrist to wrist; yet
had they gold at arm and neck: there was silence in the hall when
they stood amidst of the floor.

Then indeed Hallblithe could not refrain himself, and he leapt from
his seat and on to the board, and over it, and ran down the hall, and
came to those women and looked them in the face one by one, while no
man spake in the hall. But the Hostage was not amongst them; nay
forsooth, they none of them favoured of the daughters of his people,
though they were comely and fair; so that again Hallblithe doubted if
this were aught but a feast-hall play done to anger him; whereas
there was but little grief in the faces of those damsels, and more
than one of them smiled wantonly in his face as he looked on them.

So he turned about and went back to his seat, having said no word,
and behind him arose much mocking and jeering; but it angered him
little now; for he remembered the rede of the elder and how that he