n in his arms and dragged her off to a distant and
impenetrable fen. Moreover, when they had lain together, he conjured her
earnestly to disclose the matter to none, and the promise of silence was
accorded as heartily as it was asked. For both of them had been under
the same fostering in their childhood; and this early rearing in common
had brought Amleth and the girl into great intimacy.

So, when he had returned home, they all jeeringly asked him whether he
had given way to love, and he avowed that he had ravished the maid. When
he was next asked where he did it, and what had been his pillow, he said
that he had rested upon the hoof of a beast of burden, upon a cockscomb,
and also upon a ceiling. For, when he was starting into temptation, he
had gathered fragments of all these things, in order to avoid lying. And
though his jest did not take aught of the truth out of the story, the
answer was greeted with shouts of merriment from the bystanders. The
maiden, too, when questioned on the matter, declared that he had done
no such thing; and her denial was the more readily credited when it was
found that the escort had not witnessed the deed. Then he who had marked
the gadfly in order to give a hint, wishing to show Amleth that to his
trick he owed his salvation, observed that latterly he had been singly
devoted to Amleth. The young man's reply was apt. Not to seem forgetful
of his informant's service, he said that he had seen a certain thing
bearing a straw flit by suddenly, wearing a stalk of chaff fixed in its
hinder parts. The cleverness of this speech, which made the rest split
with laughter, rejoiced the heart of Amleth's friend.

Thus all were worsted, and none could open the secret lock of the young
man's wisdom. But a friend of Feng, gifted more with assurance than
judgment, declared that the unfathomable cunning of such a mind could
not be detected by any vulgar plot, for the man's obstinacy was so great
that it ought not to be assailed with any mild measures; there were
many sides to his wiliness, and it ought not to be entrapped by any one
method. Accordingly, said he, his own profounder acuteness had hit on
a more delicate way, which was well fitted to be put in practice, and
would effectually discover what they desired to know. Feng was purposely
to absent himself, pretending affairs of great import. Amleth should be
closeted alone with his mother in her chamber; but a man should first be
commissioned to plac