The three envoys made their short journey to the river-side as quickly as possible, and presently they stood on the bank of the Eure. Across the river were the new fortifications, and some of the sea-kings' men were busy with their armor on the other shore.
"Gallant soldiers!" cries the Count of Chartres; "what is your chieftain's name?"
"We have no lord over us," they shouted back again; "we are all equal."
"To drive out the people who are here, or make them our subjects, and to make ourselves a new country," says the Northman. "Who are you?—How is it that you speak our own tongue?"
"You know the story of Hasting," answers the [Pg039] count, not without pride—"Hasting, the great pirate, who scoured the seas with his crowd of ships, and did so much evil in this kingdom?"
"Aye, we have heard that, but Hasting has made a bad end to so good a beginning"; to which the count had nothing to say; he was Lord of Chartres now, and liked that very well.
"Will you submit to King Charles?" he shouts again, and more men are gathering on the bank to listen. "Will you give your faith and service, and take from him gifts and honor?"
"No, no!" they answer; "we will not submit to King Charles—go back, and tell him so, you messenger, and say that we claim the rule and dominion of what we win by our own strength and our swords."
But the Frenchmen called Hasting a traitor when he brought this answer back to camp, and told his associates not to try to force the pagan entrenchments. A traitor, indeed! That was too much for the old viking's patience. For all that, the accusation may have held a grain of truth. Nobody knows the whole of his story, but he may have felt the old fire and spirit of his youth when he saw the great encampment and heard the familiar tones of his countrymen. It may be wrong to suspect that he went to join them; but, at all events, Count Chartres left the French camp indignantly, and nobody knows where he went, either then or afterward, for he forsook his adopted country and left it to its fate. They found out that he had given good advice to those proud comrades of his, for when they attacked the enemy between the rivers they were cut to [Pg040] pieces; even the duke of France, their bold leader, was killed by a poor fisherman of Rouen who had followed the Northern army.