Suddenly a strange din of discordant music from thousands of musical instruments--conches and horns, cymbals and drums, arose in wild confusion.

Shouts of defiance in a dozen tongues and from two hundred thousand throats rose wild and shrill upon the air, while clear above all the din were heard the strange vibratory cries of the warriors from the Egyptian highlands.
"One would think," said Cnut grimly to Cuthbert, "that the infidels imagine we are a flock of antelopes to be frightened by an outcry.

They would do far better to save their wind for future use.

They will want it, methinks, when we get fairly among them.

Who would have thought that a number of men, heathen and infidel though they be, could have made so foul an outcry ?" Cuthbert laughed.
"Every one fights according to his own method, Cnut; and I am not sure that there is not some thing to be said for this outcry, for it is really so wild and fearful that it makes my blood almost curdle in my veins; and were it not that I know the proved valor of our knights and footmen, I should feel shaken by this terrible introduction to the fight." "I heed it no more," said Cnut, "than the outcry of wild fowl, when one comes upon them suddenly on a lake in winter.