For a few seconds they faced one another without moving, and then the chief made a sudden leap forward and aimed a tremendous blow at Garff’s head. Garff leaped back to avoid the blow, and then rushed in and aimed a return stroke as his enemy’s axe swung round, and the chief leaped back. So they went on, striking and avoiding warily, until Garff began to give way, leaping backward at each attack and not striking again in return, for he saw that his enemy was spending his strength, and he meant to save his own. Never for a second did Garff cease to fix his eyes on his enemy’s eyes, and the two faced each other savagely. Then the chief rushed at Garff again in a fury, and struck with all his might. Garff avoided again, and jabbed upward with his axe-head to parry the blow, but he was not quick enough, and got a deep cut in the arm. Then the chief pressed hard upon him, thinking to end him with one blow; but Garff parried the stroke and gave a mighty spring, and before his enemy could recover, dealt him a blow on the right shoulder, so that he dropped his axe and fell prone. Then Garff picked up the bronze axe of the chief and drove it deep into his skull, then waved his own axe over his head and gave a great shout. When the Warriors saw their leader fall, they uttered loud cries, and some of them rushed forward with spears and axes. But Tig leaped out, and Garff’s men and the Lake Men with him, and Garff waved the dripping axe, and they rushed upon the band and put them to flight and chased them through the woods, every one marking his man. And they killed many of them there and many by the river-side, and only those escaped who flung themselves into the river and swam across. Then Garff and Bran called their men together, and they found that only five had been killed in the fight and seven wounded. And they sought out the bodies of their enemies that were fallen, and took their weapons and their necklaces and cut off their heads; and Garff cut off the head of the chief, and took his necklace of amber and his famous bronze axe, Skull-pecker; and so they all marched back in triumph, carrying their spoils and the heads of their enemies, to their own villages. [Illustration] _Chapter the Thirty-first_ _DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: How they dug out the Barrow_