seeing now that the road had become deserted, he set spurs to his
horse, and was just in sight of the Druid temple, when a javelin
whizzed close by his breast, and another transfixed his horse, which
fell head foremost to the ground.

The Earl gained his feet in an instant, and that haste was needed to
save his life; for while he rose ten swords flashed around him. The
Welchmen had sprung from their palfreys as Harold's horse fell.
Fortunately for him, only two of the party bore javelins, (a weapon
which the Welch wielded with deadly skill,) and those already wasted,
they drew their short swords, which were probably imitated from the
Romans, and rushed upon him in simultaneous onset. Versed in all the
weapons of the time, with his right hand seeking by his spear to keep
off the rush, with the ateghar in his left parrying the strokes aimed
at him, the brave Earl transfixed the first assailant, and sore
wounded the next; but his tunic was dyed red with three gashes, and
his sole chance of life was in the power yet left him to force his way
through the ring. Dropping his spear, shifting his ateghar into the
right hand, wrapping round his left arm his gonna as a shield, he
sprang fiercely on the onslaught, and on the flashing swords. Pierced
to the heart fell one of his foes--dashed to the earth another--from
the hand of a third (dropping his own ateghar) he wrenched the sword.
Loud rose Harold's cry for aid, and swiftly he strode towards the
hillock, turning back, and striking as he turned; and again fell a
foe, and again new blood oozed through his own garb. At that moment
his cry was echoed by a shriek so sharp and so piercing that it
startled the assailants, it arrested the assault; and, ere the unequal
strife could be resumed, a woman was in the midst of the fray; a woman
stood dauntless between the Earl and his foes.