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CHAPTER IV
A BERSERKER

Following with saddened eyes the light holker that carried away the warrior maid, Gaëlo remained silent and pensive, while his champions rested upon their oars. The steersman, a man of about thirty years, of a merry face and clad in the coat and wide breeches of the skippers of the Seine, was named Simon Large-Ears. He owed his surname to an enormous pair of ears, that stood out far from his temples, and which were as red as his nose. Simon, once a serf of the fisheries attached to the abbey of St. Paterne, had, jointly with three other companions, who were seated on the oarsmen's benches, and who wore the Northman pointed casque and cuirass of iron scales, run away to the pirates and offered them their services in the capacity of pilot and oarsmen, the moment that the numerous Northman fleet had appeared at the mouth of the Seine. Simon and his comrades, as well as many other Gallic serfs, who availed themselves of the opportunity to drop their servitude and revenge upon their masters the ill-treatment that the latter subjected them to, only demanded from their Northman allies a share of the prospective booty.¹

Leaning on his harpoon, silent and pensive, Gaëlo contemplated the holker of the Beautiful Shigne as it rowed back and became indistinct in the light mist that frequently rises at sunset from the surface of the river's waters. Simon Large-Ears, seated at the poop, and, as pilot, holding the rudder in his hand, said to one of his companions surnamed Robin Jaws, by reason of his lower jaw-bones protruding like a Molossian's:

"Did you hear the conversation between the Beautiful Shigne and Gaëlo? What savage she-devils are these Northman virgins! They must be courted with rough sword whacks, caressed with battle-axe cracks, and their hearts can be reached only by boring through their breasts, and if you don't, then these furies make you wed death. How do you like such betrothals?"

"I would prefer to court one of those African lionesses of which Ibrahim the Saracen was telling us the other day," and turning towards his bench-mate, a gigantic Northman of a beard so blonde that it seemed almost white, Robin said: "Helloa, Lodbrog! If all the women of your race receive their lovers in that manner, there must be more dead bodies than new-born ones in your country."

"Yes – but the children of these virgin warriors, whom none possesses until after he has vanquished his chosen one with the sword, become men, everyone of whom are worth ten others in vigor and bravery," answered the giant gravely, and raising his enormous head he proceeded: "All such children are born, like myself, berserkers."

"Aye, aye!" put in the other Northman oarsmen in a low voice and with an accent of deference that bordered on fear. "Lodbrog was born a berserker!"

"I do not deny it, comrades," replied Simon; "but by the devil! Explain to me what 'berserker' means."

"A warrior who is always terrible to his enemies," explained one of the Northmans, "and sometimes dangerous to his friends."

The giant Lodbrog nodded his head affirmatively, while Simon and Robin looked at him in astonishment, not having understood the mysterious words of the pirates. At this moment Gaëlo approached his men. He had awakened from the profound revery into which the disappearance of the Buckler Maiden plunged him. The Northman chieftain looked determined.

"My champions," said Gaëlo in a resonant voice, "we must be ahead of the Beautiful Shigne and seize the abbey of St. Denis ourselves! Yours shall be the booty, mine the glory!"

"Gaëlo," observed Simon, "when I heard you mention the feat to your warrior maid, I, who am well acquainted with the abbey of St. Denis, where I have recently been more than once, when I was a serf of the fishery of St. Paterne, may hell consume it, I took your words simply as a lover's jest. Guarded as the abbey is, and fortified with thick walls, the place can resist five or six hundred determined men. How can you think of taking it with only fifteen? Come, Gaëlo, you must give up the plan."

"My braves," resumed Gaëlo, after a moment's silence, "if I were to tell you that a serf, a swine-herd, is at this very hour a count, the seigneur and master of a province that Charles the Bald, grandfather of Charles the Simple, who is now king of the Franks, presented him with, you would answer me: 'A serf, a swine-herd, become master and seigneur of a province? It is impossible!'"

"By the faith of Large-Ears, that would, indeed, be my answer. A swine-herd can never become a count!"

"You think not?" replied Gaëlo. "And who is the present Count of Chartres and master of the country if not a pirate who one time was a swine-herd at Trancout, a poor village located near Troyes?"²

"Oh! Oh! Chief," put in Robin Jaws, "you have Hastain in mind, the old bandit who fought in the ranks of the Northman pirates! We know the song:

 
"When he had sacked the Franks,
Saw all his ships full rigged,
Hastain of Rome heard tell,
Vowed he would go there.
Vowed he would take the place,
Plunder and pillage it,
And make of Rome the King
His friend Boern Iron Sides."
 

"Simon," said Gaëlo, interrupting Robin's song, "listen well with both your large ears to the end of the song! Proceed my champion!"

"The song ends well," answered Robin, resuming the thread of the ballad:

 
"Down Into Italy,
Plundering, the pirates went,
Laded their ships with rich
Spoils of the Churches.
 
 
Then Hastain gave the word,
For the return to France,
And to the Frankish shores
Steered they their way back.
 
 
"But the old Frankish King,
Dreading the pirates' band,
Quoth unto Hastain then:
'Strike not the abbeys;
Touch not nor plunder them,
Nor the seigniorial burgs, —
I shall establish you
Count of the Chartres.'
 
 
"Hastain the pirate Chief,
Well with the offer pleased,
Answered agreeably,
'Lo, I am willing!'
Thus was the bargain struck,
Thus he became the Count
Of the vast Chartres land,
He, once a swine-herd!"
 

"By the devil and his horns! Long live Hastain! All is possible!" cried Simon Large-Ears, saying which he joined his piercing voice to the deep voices of the pirates, who, striking with their oars upon the row of bucklers that hung from the sides of the holker, sang fit to rend the welkin:

 
"Thus was the bargain struck,
Thus he became the Count
Of the vast Chartres land,
He, once a swine-herd!"
 

"And now," Gaëlo resumed after his champions had finished the martial refrain, "if a swine-herd serf could become the master of a province, do you hold it impossible for fifteen resolute champions to take possession of the abbey of St. Denis, the richest abbey of all Gaul?"

"No! No!" cried the pirates fired with the prospect of pillage, and again smiting with their oars the bucklers that hung from the sides of the holker. "To St. Denis! To St. Denis! Death to its tonsured masters! Pillage! Pillage! Fire and blood!"

The thundering voice of Lodbrog the Giant dominated the din that proceeded from the Northmans' throats and the clangor of the smitten shields. Standing on his bench and whirling in one hand his long oar with the ease that he would have handled a reed, he bellowed at the top of his voice: "To St. Denis! To St. Denis!" And intoxicating and lashing himself into a fury with his own clamor, his savage features speedily betokened a degree of exaltation that developed into a kind of delirium. His eyes rolled rapidly in their orbits; his lips whitened with foam; and finally, emitting a terrible cry, he bent his oar in his hands and broke it in two as if it had been a cane.

At the sight of such a display of superhuman strength, the Northmans, who had for some little while before been observing Lodbrog with anxious looks, now cried out in chorus:

"Beware all! He is berserk! He will kill us all!" And before Gaëlo had time to prevent it, all the pirates threw themselves upon the giant, and by their united efforts rolled him overboard into the Seine.

Gaëlo had anchored his vessel at a short distance from one of the woody islets, washed by the river. Lodbrog fell heels over head into the water between the holker and the nearby shore. With one bound the giant leaped out of the river, which was deep and rapid at that spot, and gained the shore, where he ran about shouting: "To St. Denis! To St Denis!" The frenzy that possessed the giant increased ten-fold the man's prodigious strength. He uprooted a twenty-foot poplar, and armed with the tree as with a mace, smote and crushed the other trees within his reach. The largest branches flew into splinters, the trunks broke in two, and still the furious vertigo of the colossus was on the increase. Not far from the shore stood the ruins of a house still partly covered by its roof; its walls arrested for a moment the demented course of the berserker. But the obstacle redoubled his rage. The trunk of the poplar served him for a ram. Its repeated blows broke through a portion of the lower wall, which thereupon came tumbling down with a great crash. Held up by the iron work in the opposite wall, a portion of the roof still remained in place. The giant clambered over the debris, grasped the beams of the roof with both hands and shook them furiously, ever bellowing: "To St. Denis! To St. Denis!" At last the beams yielded, and the worm-eaten roof, still partly covered with tiles, sank down upon Lodbrog with a deafening crash. For an instant the raging maniac disappeared under a cloud of dust, but presently reappeared unscathed from the falling timber and tiles. His casque and iron armor had protected him. He mounted the heap of ruins, looked around, and seeing nothing more to destroy, descended, pulled up the joists and beams, lifted up enormous stones and hurled them about with the irresistible force of those engines of war that are called catapults. Suddenly the berserker was heard to emit a roar like that of a lion; he raised his powerful arms heavenward, his body became rigid; for a moment he remained motionless like a gigantic iron statue, and then, like a colossus about to tumble from its base, swayed for an instant in air, dropped to the ground and rolled like a solid block from the top of the heap of ruins down to its foot, where he lay prone, seemingly as inanimate as a corpse.

Gaëlo and the Northman pirates were not amazed at the frenzy of Lodbrog. They knew well that many a Northman mariner was subject to these frightful fits, frightful like the fury of the insane, a sort of epilepsy peculiar to the berserkers, with whom the anticipation or the ardor of battle, anger or drunkenness brought on the spell. Simon Large-Ears and Robin Jaws, however, now witnessed the spectacle for the first time; they gazed at it with surprise and affright. Finally, seeing from the distance that Lodbrog lay unconscious and rigid amidst the wreck that he had wrought, Simon cried:

"He is now fortunately dead! We have nothing more to fear!"

"The Northmans are right," put in Robin; "such frantic folks are as dangerous to their friends as to their enemies. If that berserker had remained among us in the holker, he would have strangled or drowned us all!"

"After which he would have flung the vessel over his head like a wooden shoe. He could have done it. I saw him flinging around beams and rocks that must have surely weighed three times as much as any man," added Large-Ears. "What an amount of strength all wasted! How he would have scattered about death and desolation in the abbey of St. Denis, where he thought he was fighting. After all, it is a pity that he is dead and gone."

"He is not dead – weigh anchor, my champions! With two strokes of the oars we can reach the isle, and presently you will see Lodbrog return to himself as if awakening from a dream."

"By the horns of the devil!" exclaimed Simon. "Out of fear that he may take to dreaming again and harpoon me, I prefer to stay on the vessel with my friend Robin;" and Large-Ears never once took his eyes off the berserker who continued motionless only a hundred feet from the shore and in plain sight of his companions.

"The Northmans may go alone to the assistance of the maniac, if they so desire," observed Robin as the holker approached the shore. "It will be a sweet sensation for Lodbrog to recognize the faces of folks from his native land, when he regains consciousness, will it not?"

"It sometimes happens that fires, thought to be extinct, suddenly flame up," Large-Ears rejoined sagely.

The vessel touched land, and Gaëlo and the Northmans approached the colossus, not, however, without caution. One of the pirates took off his casque, filled it half-full with water, threw into it a handful of sand that he picked up from the shore and shook up the mixture, while his companions vainly sought to raise Lodbrog into a sitting posture. The body was rigid like a bar of iron. They found it impossible to extract from his clenched fist a stone that he still held as firmly as in a vise between his fingers. His face, surrounded by the borders of his casque, was livid and motionless, his jaws were set, his lips were covered with froth, his eyes fixed, dilated, glassy. The Northman, dipping out of his casque the sand moistened with cold water, threw it by handfuls upon the prostrate giant's face.

"Be careful!" called out Gaëlo. "You will blind him with the moist sand."

"No, no!" confidently answered the pirate, redoubling his sandy douches. "It is especially when the fine gravel enters the eye that the good effect is produced."

The pirate's experience did not deceive him. Soon slight convulsive tremors began to agitate the lines on Lodbrog's face. His rigid fingers loosened and allowed the stone that they clenched to roll off. A few minutes later his limbs became supple. One of the Northmans ran to the river and dipped up some fresh water and dashed it in the berserker's face. The latter was soon heard to mumble in a ruffled voice while he rubbed his eyelids:

"My eyes burn me. Am I in the celestial Walhalla promised by Odin to departed warriors?"

"You are here among your companions of war, my brave champion," Gaëlo answered him. "You have broken down a score of huge trees and demolished a house. Was that enough to limber up your strength? What do you still want?"

"Oh! Oh!" mumbled the giant, shaking his enormous head, and without ceasing to rub his eyes with his fists. "I am not at all surprised at having played such havoc. I began to feel myself berserk when I cried out, 'To St. Denis!' and all the time after I imagined myself demolishing the abbey and slaughtering the monks and their soldiers. I was trying to exterminate them all."

"Do not be disappointed, my Hercules," Gaëlo replied encouragingly. "The moon will rise early; we shall row all night; to-morrow evening we shall be at St. Denis, and day after to-morrow at Paris."

CHAPTER V
THE ABBEY OF ST. DENIS

The abbey of St. Denis resembled a vast fortified castle. The high and thick walls that enclosed it, the only entrance through which was a vaulted gate, covered with heavy sheets of iron and, like the walls, pierced with narrow loop-holes through which the archers could reach the enemy with their arrows, rendered the place safe against any surprise. In order to take this fortress, large engines of war would be required and a powerful attacking force.

Agreeable to her promise made to Father Fultrade, Martha and her daughter Anne the Sweet found themselves towards nightfall at the trysting place named by the monk. He also was on time. He arrived on his large horse, an animal powerful enough to carry Eidiol's wife on its crupper and in front of the saddle the young girl, whom the priest thus had an opportunity to hold in his arms. Despite its robust neck and haunches, the horse that bore the triple load could proceed only slowly along the ancient Roman route, which, connecting Paris with Amiens, led by the abbey of St. Denis. The nocturnal trip was long and made in silence. Martha, proud of finding herself riding at the crupper of a holy man, thought only of the relic whose divine influence was to preserve her as well as her daughter from all present and future ills. Anne had come with repugnance. The monk ever inspired her with a vague sense of fear. The night was dark; the route uncertain. When, as it happened from time to time, the horse seemed to take fright, the maid felt Fultrade tighten his hold upon her, and his hot breath smite her cheeks.

When, finally, the monk arrived with his two female traveling companions at the massive gate of the abbey, he knocked in a particular manner. The knock was speedily answered by the gleam of a lantern at the wicket; the wicket was then opened; a few words were exchanged in a low voice between the brother at the gate and Fultrade; the light went out; the ponderous door turned on its hinges, leaving a passage for the new arrivals, and then closed again when all three had entered.

Martha and her daughter stood in utter darkness. An invisible personage took charge of the priest's horse and led it away. Fultrade then took the arm of Martha and whispered to her:

"Give your hand to your daughter, and both follow me. Your arrival here must be kept a profound secret."

After descending a steep staircase, and following for a considerable time the windings of a vaulted passage-way, the monk stopped and groped for the orifice of the lock of a door, which he opened.

"Step in, my dear daughters in Christ," said the monk; "you may wait for me here; in the meantime say your prayers."

A few minutes later the door opened again, and returning without a light, as before, the monk said:

"Martha, you will first adore the relic; your daughter's turn will come after you."

"Oh! No!" cried Anne the Sweet in deep anxiety. "I will not remain alone here in the dark! No! I wish to remain near my mother!"

"My child, fear nothing," said Martha reassuringly; "we are in a holy abbey, and besides, under the protection of Father Fultrade."

"Moreover," interjected the monk, "one is never alone when thinking of God. Your mother will be back shortly."

"Mother, I will not leave you – I am afraid," screamed the young girl.

It was in vain. Before Anne could find her mother in the dark to cling to her, the girl felt a vigorous hand staying her off. Martha was hurried out, and the door closed behind her and upon her daughter. More and more affrighted, Anne screamed aloud. In vain again. The steps of Fultrade and Martha receded. Soon all sound ceased, and a brooding darkness reigned around the helpless girl. A minute later the blood rushed to Anne's heart. Distinctly she heard near her, as if groping about in the darkness, the respiration of one panting for breath. Immediately she felt herself seized by two vigorous arms and raised from the floor. The young girl strove to free herself and called aloud to her mother for help. The struggle was so violent and the girl's outcry so loud that it at first drowned the sound of a rap at the door. But the rapping speedily became so vehement that it soon drowned the violent struggle within and a voice was heard uttering at the door some Latin words in a hurried tone and in accents of alarm. Anne felt herself immediately delivered from the close embrace that terrified her, and soon as released fell fainting to the floor. Someone passed by her, opened and double-locked the door in great hurry, and ran away precipitately.

While, aided by another monk, his accomplice, Fultrade was locking up Martha and her daughter in separate subterranean cells of the abbey where serfs and other culprits under the jurisdiction of the abbot were usually confined, a great commotion reigned in another quarter of the holy place. Monks, suddenly shaken from their slumbers, were running about under the arches of the cloister, with torches in their hands. In the center of one of the interior courtyards a score of horsemen were seen. The sweat that streamed down the steeds gave evidence of the length and precipitancy of a recent run. They had escorted to the abbey the Count of Paris, who, arriving from his city in hot haste, proceeded immediately to the apartment of Fortunat, the Abbot of St Denis. The prelate, a man of shapeless obesity and with his eyes still half closed with sleep, was hastily donning a long and warmly furred morning robe that one of his servants was helping him into. Other menials of the abbey were lighting the candles of two candelabra made of solid silver and placed upon a richly ornamented table. There was nothing more sumptuous than the abbot's bedroom. Having finally put on his gown, the abbot rubbed his eyes, seated on the edge of his downy couch. Count Rothbert, who had been taken to the abbot, was impatiently demanding that Fultrade be called.

"Seigneur count, he has been sent for, but he was not in his cell," answered the abbot's chamberlain, who had accompanied the count to the abbot's apartment and was followed by several of his fellow officials – the marshal, the equerry, the butler and other dignitaries of the abbey.

"Father Fultrade must be in church," put in a voice, "he must have gone to early matins."

"Unless he remained in Paris, where I ran across him this morning," replied Rothbert. "Never was his presence more needed than here and now!"

"Count," said the abbot gulping down a yawn, "none of my dear brothers in Christ sleep outside of the abbey, unless sent on a mission by me. Fultrade must surely have returned home this evening. Will you not please to communicate to me the cause of this night alarm?"

"I shall give you news of a nature to make you open wide your eyes and ears. The Northmans have reappeared at the mouth of the Seine. They are advancing upon Paris with a fleet of vessels!"

Despite his enormous corpulence, Abbot Fortunat bounded up from his bed. His triple chin shivered; his large red face was blanched; he clasped his hands in terror; his lips trembled convulsively; but his fear prevented him from articulating a single word. The other personages attached to the abbey looked, like himself, terror-stricken at the tidings brought by the count. Some moaned, others fell upon their knees and invoked the intercession of the Lord. All, the abbot included, who had finally found his voice, cried:

"Almighty God, have mercy upon us! Deliver us from these pagans! From these demons! Alack! Alack! What ills are about to afflict the servitors of your Church! What ravages! Our goods will be pillaged by these sacrilegious wretches! Oh, Lord! Deliver us from the Northmans! Command your angels to exterminate these pagans!"

In the midst of these exclamations Fultrade entered, at last. He looked cross and irritated. His face was inflamed.

"Come in, Fultrade," the count called to him when he saw the monk appear at the threshold of the abbot's apartment. "Come in; you are the only man of thought and action in this place;" and turning to the abbot, whose whimpering annoyed him, the count added: "Fortunat, quit your lamentations! The hour calls for action, not for whines!"

The monks repressed their moans with difficulty, while the Count of Paris, addressing Fultrade in particular, said:

"The moments are precious – the Northmans have appeared at the mouth of the Seine. They are said to be under the command of one of their most intrepid sea-kings, named Rolf. Their fleet is so numerous that it covers the whole width of the mouth of the river. They can not now be further away than ten or twelve leagues from here. The means to repel them must be considered."

"And how comes it that we have not been apprised of the arrival of these accursed men?" inquired Fultrade in a rage. "They have passed Rouen. How comes it that the people of that city did not spread the alarm? There is treason in this!"

"Oh! What do the people of Rouen care about the arrival of the pirates? Not having been this time themselves attacked by the Northmans, they do not concern themselves about the rest of the provinces. It was only this evening that I was notified by some messengers of the seigneurs and abbots, whose lands border on the Seine, that the Northmans were here. They furthermore informed me that the vile rustic plebs, which has nothing to lose, shows itself everywhere happy at the thought of the ills that these pagans will inflict upon the Church and the seigneurs. It is for us, accordingly, for us seigneurs and clergy, to join hands and defend one another! We need not look for help from Charles the Simple, who will think of nothing but the defence of his own royal domain, if he be capable of even that. He will allow the Northmans to plunder us to their hearts' content."

"Alack! Alack!" resumed the Abbot of St. Denis with a fresh outburst of moans. "What direful calamities are again in store for us! – Did we not see Charles the Bald grant the country of Chartres to that execrable Hastain! to that chieftain of Northman pirates! to that vile revolted serf! to that bandit, soiled with all crimes and abominable sacrileges! Alack! – What horrible times these are in which we live! – What shall we do, Oh, Lord! – What else can we do but invoke your holy name!"

"What we are to do? – It is plain! We must rely upon ourselves alone! Organize ourselves for our own defence; arm our colonists and our towns-people; and lead them out, under pain of death, to do battle with the Northman! – You, Fultrade, are a man of energy and intelligence. Immediately take horse and ride at full gallop with some of my officers and a good escort, to summon in my name the bishops and abbots of my duchy of France to arm their serfs and towns-men. A portion of these men is to be left in the abbeys and castles as a garrison, the others are to be marched to Paris in small detachments, to defend the Commune."

"Count, what are you thinking of!" exclaimed the abbot, raising his hands to heaven. "At so dangerous a moment, would you send Father Fultrade from my side!"

"You need not be afraid," answered Rothbert. "Before leaving Paris I issued orders to one hundred of my men at arms to march hither at the double quick, in order to defend this post which dominates the Seine."

"Alack!" murmured the abbot, breaking out in tears. "Already, five times has this abbey been invaded, sacked and pillaged by these pagans. Although the place has been surrounded by new fortifications, it never could resist the Northmans! Alack! The thickest walls crumble down before these demons! We are lost!"

"Fear is deranging your mind, Fortunat. I tell you again that nothing short of a regular siege will take the place. My hundred soldiers will suffice for the defence against these Northmans. And, now, Fultrade, to horse! If you succeed in your mission you will receive from me a rich bishopric in reward."

The monk had until then looked troubled and given but scant attention to the words of the count. The moment, however, that he heard an abbey promised to him his eyes brightened and his forehead smoothed. With sparkling eyes he answered:

"Seigneur, if our holy abbot allows me, I shall carry out his orders and yours. May heaven protect me! I trust I may be able to carry your commission to a successful issue."

At this point one of the count's officers entered, saying:

"Agreeable to your orders, several archers whom our riders brought on the cruppers of their horses were posted on the river bank. By the light of the moon they noticed a large vessel ascending the Seine. They compelled the sailors to land, threatening them, in case of refusal, to treat them to a volley of arrows. The master of the vessel is being brought in."

"Have him come here immediately," answered Rothbert; and turning to the abbot he explained: "I have issued orders to allow no vessel to pass without questioning the skippers. They may be able to furnish us with some information on the fleet of the pirates; they may have picked up something."

The master who was forthwith introduced was Eidiol, the dean of the Skippers' Guild, who had been so brutally treated by the count on that very day. Assuming a look of surprise, mingled with cordiality, Rothbert said to Eidiol:

"I did not expect to see you quite so soon again, my trusty skipper!" and waving his hand towards the aged man, he said to the abbot: "This man is the dean of the honorable Skippers' and Mariners' Guild of Paris."

Greatly astonished at the cordial and respectful reception that he now received at the hand of Rothbert, who, that very forenoon had treated him with so much contempt, Eidiol looked suspiciously at the count and sought to explain to himself the cause of so sudden a change in his favor. As to Fultrade, the monk at first seemed nailed to the floor with stupefaction at the sight of the father of Anne the Sweet, but speedily recovering his self-control, said to Rothbert:

"Time presses. I shall depart instantly on the mission that you have charged me with."

"Make it clear to the seigneurs and the abbots that we can not choose but win, provided we act concertedly."

The monk vanished, and redoubling his affability toward Eidiol, Rothbert resumed: "Be welcome, my trusty skipper. You could not possibly have arrived at a more opportune moment. Your advice will be useful to us."

"Your archers must, no doubt, have thought so, seeing they threatened to let fly a volley of arrows at us if our vessel did not promptly land where they ordered."

"Such severe measures are unavoidable at this moment, my worthy skipper. No doubt you have heard the news? The Northmans have reappeared at the mouth of the Seine."

"Oh!" exclaimed Eidiol with perfect indifference. "It is the Northmans, is it? Yes, I have learned of their approach. I even know, from the master of a lighter that was pulling up the river, that the pirates' fleet dropped anchor this evening near the isle of Oissel, one of their former and favorite rendezvous."

"By the sword of my great father, Rothbert the Strong!" cried Rothbert, stupefied and indignant at the unconcern of the skipper with regard to the invasion of the Northman pirates. "This upsets me! What do you mean by such a display of apathy at the prospect of the terrible ills that are about to fall over our heads?!"