I called the rest, and we looked down on the men. They saw us, and an
arrow or two flew at us, badly aimed in the moonlight.
"Waste of good arrows," said Havelok; "but we must keep them from the
door somehow."
"Would that the jarl would come," growled Biorn, "for I do not see how
we are to do that."
"If they do break in," said I, "any one can hold a stairway like this
against a crowd."
"I do not want to hurt more of these," answered Havelok, looking round
him. And then his eyes lit up, and he laughed. "Why, we can keep them
back easily enough, after all."
He went to the tower corner, and shouted to the men below. Four or five
had the heavy log that they were to use as a ram, and they were just
about to charge the door with it, and no timber planking can stand that
sort of thing.
"Ho, men," he cried; "set that down, or some of you may get hurt."
They set up a roar of laughter at him as they heard, and then Havelok
laid hold of the great square block of stone that was on the very corner
of the wall, and tore it from its setting.
"Odin!" said Biorn, as he saw that, "where do they breed such men as this?"
"Here," answered Withelm, looking at the sheriff.
Now Havelok hove up the stone over his head, and a sort of gasp went up
from the crowd below. One saw what was coming, and ran to drag back the
men with the beam, and stopped short before he reached them in terror,
crying to them to beware.
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