d Cornish
leader, Haco, and the wedding feast was to be held that very day.
Sigtryg was greatly enraged, and sent a troop of forty Danes to King
Alef demanding the fulfilment of the troth-plight between himself and
his daughter, and threatening vengeance if it were broken. To this
threat the king returned no answer, and no Dane came back to tell of
their reception.

[Illustration: Hereward and Sigtryg]

Hereward in the Enemy's Hall

Sigtryg would have waited till morning, trusting in the honour of the
king, but Hereward disguised himself as a minstrel and obtained
admission to the bridal feast, where he soon won applause by his
beautiful singing. The bridegroom, Haco, in a rapture offered him any
boon he liked to ask, but he demanded only a cup of wine from the
hands of the bride. When she brought it to him he flung into the empty
cup the betrothal ring, the token she had sent to Sigtryg, and said:
"I thank thee, lady, and would reward thee for thy gentleness to a
wandering minstrel; I give back the cup, richer than before by the
kind thoughts of which it bears the token." The princess looked at
him, gazed into the goblet, and saw her ring; then, looking again, she
recognised her deliverer and knew that rescue was at hand.

Haco's Plan

While men feasted Hereward listened and talked, and found out that the
forty Danes were prisoners, to be released on the morrow when Haco was
sure of his bride, but released useless and miserable, since they
would be turned adrift blinded. Haco was taking his lovely bride back
to his own land, and Hereward saw that any rescue, to be successful,
must be attempted on the march. Yet he knew not the way the bridal
company would go, and he lay down to sleep in the hall, hoping that
he might hear something more. When all men slept a dark shape came
gliding through the hall and touched Hereward on the shoulder; he
slept lightly, and awoke at once to recognise the old nurse of the
princess. "Come to her now," the old woman whispered, and Hereward
went, though he knew not that the princess was still true to her
lover. In her bower, which she was soon to leave, Haco's sorrowful
bride awaited the messenger.

Rescue for Haco's Bride

Sadly she smiled on the young Saxon as she said: "I knew your face
again in spite of the disguise, but you come too late. Bear my
farewell to Sigtryg, and say that my father's will, not mine, makes me
false to my troth-plight." "Have you not been told, l