at the end. So men bowed thereto, and all your men
he drove out if they would not serve him, and few remained. The rest
have taken service elsewhere if they were free."

So Matelgar was in possession, and now would be confirmed in the same.
What mattered that to an outlaw? But I could have borne anything better
than to think of him sitting in my place as reward for his treachery.
This was evidence of weakness, however, in his case, that he should have
tried to have me slain.

Now I had learnt all I needed, and more, in the one thing next my heart,
than I hoped, if that were true--for still I could not but doubt the
faith of all. Only one thing more I would ask, and that was if Matelgar
bided in his own or my hall. The man told me that he kept in his own place.

"Now," said I, "I had a mind to leave you bound here for the wolves, but
you shall take a message to your master."

On that the man swore to do my bidding, or, if I would, to follow me.

"Save your oaths," I said. "I have heard a many today, and I hold them
as nothing. Take these cast rags of mine, and bear them back to your
master. Give them to him, and then say to him whatsoever you will--
either that you have slain me and these are the tokens, but that Gurth
was by me slain, and you must leave him and his arms here because of the
wolves which you feared; or else you can tell him the truth, as it has
happened, and see what he does to you. I mind how he hung up a thrall of
his by the thumbs once for two days. He will surely take good care of
one of two who were beaten by an unarmed man. But I think the lie will
come easiest to your master's man."

Thus spoke I bitterly, and cut the belt which bound the man's arms,
thinking all the while that he would never go back at all if he were
wise. But he said he would go back and tell the lie, and I laughed at him.

It was dusk now, and though I feared not the man, I would play with him
yet a little longer in my bitterness. So I bade him keep still, and stir
not till I gave him leave. His feet were yet bound, and he would need an
edge-tool to loose that binding. Telling him, then, that I would not run
the chance of his falling on me from behind, I took his dagger and the
seax they had given me, and stuck them in the ground a full hundred
yards away, and then bade him, when I was out of sight, crawl thither as
best he might and so loose himself.

The poor wretch was too glad to be spared to do aught but repeat that