Save for
that black cloud, the June sky was bright and blue overhead, and in
the sunshine one could not see the red tongues of flame that were
licking up the last timbers of the house where I was born. Round
the walls, beyond reach of smoke and heat, stood the foemen who had
wrought the harm, and nearer the great door lay those of our men
who had fallen at the first. There were foemen there also, for it
had been a good fight.
At last the roof fell in with a mighty crash and uprush of smoke
and sparks, while out of the smother reeled and staggered half a
dozen men who had in some way escaped the falling timbers. I think
they had been those who still guarded the doorway, being unwounded.
But among them were not my father and brothers, and I knew that I
was the last of my line by that absence.
It was not my fault that I was not lying with them under our roof
yonder. I had headed a charge by a dozen of our best men, when it
seemed that a charge might at least give time for the escape of the
few women of the house to the glen. My father had bidden me, and we
went, and did our best. We won the time we fought for, and that was
all. Some of us got back to the hall, and the rest bided where they
fell. As for me, I had been stunned by an axe blow, which my helm
had turned, and came to myself to find that I was bound hand and
foot, and set aside under the stable wall with two others of our
men, captives also.
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