And the old, bald-headed King, seated on his high seat in the Hall between his pretty daughter and his tired Queen, sighed as he thought of the approaching night. Yet, now that Beowulf had come, he hoped. Together they gathered about the banquet. Beowulf sat among the sons of the old King. The walls inside were as bright as the roof, and gold-gilded, and the great fires from which smoke poured out through openings in the roof were cheerful and warm. Then little Widsith's master was called up, and Widsith placed the harp for him. Clear rose the song from the scôp's lips, and all the company was still. For a while they forgot the monster which, even now with the falling dusk, was striding up from the sea, perhaps by the same path Beowulf and Widsith and the scôp had come. Already it had grown dark under heaven and darker in the Hall, and the place was filled with shadowy shapes. And now came Grendel stalking from the cloudy cliffs toward the Gold Hall. It would have been hard for four men to have carried his huge head, so big it was. The nails of his hands were like iron, and large as the monstrous claws of a wild beast. And, since there was a spell upon him, no sword or spear could harm him. While others slept--even frightened little Widsith, who had thought he could never sleep--Beowulf lay awake, ready with his naked hands to fight Grendel. Suddenly the monster smote the door of Heorot, and it cracked asunder. In he strode, flame in his eyes, and before Beowulf could spring upon him or any one awake, he snatched a sleeping warrior and tore him to pieces. Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men in his body, gripped him, and the dreadful battle and noise began. The benches were overturned, the walls cracked, the fires were scattered, and dust rose in clouds from the many-colored floor as Beowulf wrestled with Grendel. The scôp had seized his harp and was playing a great battle song, but music has no power over such evil as Grendel's. Beowulf himself, who was struggling to break the bone-house of the monster in the din of the mighty battle, did not hear it, either. And the song was lost in the noise and dust which rose together in Heorot. Even the warriors, who struck Grendel with their swords, could not help Beowulf, for neither sword nor spear could injure the monster. Only the might of the hero, himself, could do aught. At last, with the strength of thirty men, Beowulf gripped the monster. And Grendel, with rent sinews and bleeding body, fled away to the ocean cave where he had lived. And there in the cave, with the sea blood-stained and boiling above him, he died, outlawed for evil. * * * * *