recognising with fierce ire the gold torque and breastplate of the
Welch King, made their desperate charge. Then for some minutes the
pele mele was confused and indistinct--blows blind and at random--
death coming no man knew whence or how; till discipline and steadfast
order (which the Saxons kept, as by mechanism, through the discord)
obstinately prevailed. The wedge forced its way; and, though reduced
in numbers and sore wounded, the Saxon troop cleared the ring, and
joined the main force drawn up by the fort, and guarded in the rear by
its wall.

Meanwhile Harold, supported by the band under Sexwolf, had succeeded
at length in repelling farther reinforcements of the Welch at the more
accessible part of the trenches; and casting now his practised eye
over the field, he issued orders for some of the men to regain the
fort, and open from the battlements, and from every loophole, the
batteries of stone and javelin, which then (with the Saxons, unskilled
in sieges,) formed the main artillery of forts. These orders given,
he planted Sexwolf and most of his band to keep watch round the
trenches; and shading his eye with his hand, and looking towards the
moon, all waning and dimmed in the watchfires, he said, calmly, "Now
patience fights for us. Ere the moon reaches yon hill-top, the troops
of Aber and Caer-hen will be on the slopes of Penmaen, and cut off the
retreat of the Walloons. Advance my flag to the thick of yon strife."

But as the Earl, with his axe swung over his shoulder, and followed
but by some half-score or more with his banner, strode on where the
wild war was now mainly concentred, just midway between trench and
fort, Gryffyth caught sight both of the banner and the Earl, and left
the press at the very moment when he had gained the greatest
advantage; and when indeed, but for the Norman, who, wounded as he