An angry Finn smote him on the hind-head full with a stone axe. He
staggered, and then looked round and laughed.
"Fool! hast thou not heard that Hereward's armor was forged by dwarfs in
the mountain-bowels? Off, and hunt for gold, or it will be all gone."
The Finn, who was astonished at getting no more from his blow than a few
sparks, and expected instant death in return, took the hint and vanished
jabbering, as did his fellows.
"Now, Herluin, the Frenchman!" said Hereward.
"Now, Hereward, the robber of saints!" said Herluin.
It was a fine sight. The soldier and the churchman, the Englishman and the
Frenchman, the man of the then world, and the man of the then Church,
pitted fairly, face to face.
Hereward tried, for one moment, to stare down Herluin. But those terrible
eye-glances, before which Vikings had quailed, turned off harmless from
the more terrible glance of the man who believed himself backed by the
Maker of the universe, and all the hierarchy of heaven.
A sharp, unlovely face it was: though, like many a great churchman's face
of those days, it was neither thin nor haggard; but rather round, sleek,
of a puffy and unwholesome paleness. But there was a thin lip above a
broad square jaw, which showed that Herluin was neither fool nor coward.
"A robber and a child of Belial thou hast been from thy cradle; and a
robber and a child of Belial thou art now.
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