king him a fresh match, saying that
he was highly delighted with his extraordinary shrewdness. He declared
that there was a certain queen reigning in Scotland, whom he vehemently
desired to marry. Now he knew that she was not only unwedded by reason
of her chastity, but that in the cruelty of her arrogance she had
always loathed her wooers, and had inflicted on her lovers the uttermost
punishment, so that not one but of all the multitude was to be found who
had not paid for his insolence with his life.

Perilous as this commission was Amleth started, never shrinking to obey
the duty imposed upon him, but trusting partly in his own servants, and
partly in the attendants of the king. He entered Scotland, and, when
quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the
wayside to rest his horses. Pleased by the look of the spot, he thought
of resting--the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to
sleep--and posted men to keep watch some way off. The queen on hearing
of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners
and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past
the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield,
which Amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently
that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor
awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress
not only by report but by some token. With equal address he filched the
letter entrusted to Amleth from the coffer in which it was kept. When
these things were brought to the queen, she scanned the shield narrowly,
and from the notes appended made out the whole argument. Then she knew
that here was the man who, trusting in his own nicely calculated scheme,
had avenged on his uncle the murder of his father. She also looked at
the letter containing the suit for her band, and rubbed out all the
writing; for wedlock with the old she utterly abhorred, and desired
the embraces of young men. But she wrote in its place a commission
purporting to be sent from the King of Britain to herself, signed like
the other with his name and title, wherein she pretended that she was
asked to marry the bearer. Moreover, she included an account of the
deeds of which she had learnt from Amleth's shield, so that one would
have thought the shield confirmed the letter, while the letter explained
the shield. Then she told the same spies whom she had e