before the fort. The stream seemed literally to run gore; pierced by
javelins and arrows, corpses floated and vanished, while numbers,
undeterred by the havoc, leaped into the waves from the opposite
banks. Like bears that surround the ship of a sea-king beneath the
polar meteors, or the midnight sun of the north, came the savage
warriors through that glaring atmosphere.

Amidst all, two forms were pre-eminent: the one, tall and towering,
stood by the trench, and behind a banner, that now drooped round the
stave, now streamed wide and broad, stirred by the rush of men--for
the night in itself was breezeless. With a vast Danish axe wielded by
both hands, stood this man, confronting hundreds, and at each stroke,
rapid as the levin, fell a foe. All round him was a wall of his own--
the dead. But in the centre of the space, leading on a fresh troop of
shouting Welchmen who had forced their way from another part, was a
form which seemed charmed against arrow and spear. For the defensive
arms of this chief were as slight as if worn but for ornament: a small
corselet of gold covered only the centre of his breast, a gold collar
of twisted wires circled his throat, and a gold bracelet adorned his
bare arm, dropping gore, not his own, from the wrist to the elbow. He
was small and slight-shaped--below the common standard of men--but he
seemed as one made a giant by the sublime inspiration of war. He wore
no helmet, merely a golden circlet; and his hair, of deep red (longer
than was usual with the Welch), hung like the mane of a lion over his
shoulders, tossing loose with each stride. His eyes glared like the
tiger's at night, and he leaped on the spears with a bound. Lost a
moment amidst hostile ranks, save by the swift glitter of his short
sword, he made, amidst all, a path for himself and his followers, and
emerged from the heart of the steel unscathed and loud-breathing;
while, round the line he had broken, wheeled and closed his wild men,