At that moment the marshal, who was a thane set over all the ordering of the journey, went to the king and asked him if it might not be his pleasure to wait for an hour to see if the weather broke.  I think that the king was so taken up with parting words to the queen that he had hardly noticed the gloom and heat, and certainly he had not noted the uneasiness of the horses, which was growing more and more.  So he only turned for a moment to the thane, signing to the man to bring his horse.

“Nay, but a dull start often forebodes a bright ending to a journey.  We will go,” he said, laughing.

“Now farewell, mother, for the last time.”

He bent his knee for her blessing, doffing his cap as he did so.  And even as he bent I was aware of a dull rumble, not loud or like thunder, but as if all the wains of the host of King Carl were passing toward us from far off.  Hilda stood by me at that moment, and she heard it.

For the life of me, though I knew that no wagons were near us, I could not help glancing round for them, and as I did so I saw the end of a thrall’s mud hut across a field fall out.  The king leaped up and set his foot in the stirrup, and at that moment the earth heaved and shook under us, and the whole oaken hall and buildings round us creaked and groaned like a ship in a ground swell, while Hilda clung to my arm in terror.  Her horse, which the thane, her father, held, trembled and broke out into white foam all over, stumbling forward.

I do not think that the king felt it; indeed, as he was swinging himself into the saddle at the moment, he could not have done so.  But his horse reared almost on end with terror, and any less perfect rider must have had a heavy fall.  All around us were plunging horses and shouting men, but he did not seem to heed them.  He had all he could do to get his horse in hand again, and I think his eyes were misty with that parting.

He gave the horse the rein, crying to us to follow, and so passed down the dim street and out under the green arches of the lane beyond at a gallop, as gay and hopeful a lover as heart could wish.  Doubtless to him the shouts seemed but the cries of good speed, and the plunging of the maddened horses but the sounds of mounting; for the way had been left clear for him westward, and he did not look back.

Out of the houses of the town I saw the folk running and crying, not in farewell to him, but in wild terror of rattling roofs and crumbling walls.  They did not heed him; but I saw him wave his hand to them, for he thought they cheered him, as he passed too swiftly to note either pale faces or woeful cries.

Then after him rode their hardest the men of the escort and others who were already mounted, and the tumult stilled suddenly.  They say that the queen swooned there on the pavement at the gate; and I do not doubt it, though her ladies took her so quickly away that I did not see her.  Hilda was almost fainting on my arm, and I had to drag her away from the wild frenzy of her horse, which the thane could hardly hold.