asts, a prey to the ravenous
bird."

Erik: "The boding of the coward, and the will that is trained to evil,
have never kept themselves within due measure. He who betrays his lord,
he who conceives foul devices, will be as great a snare to himself as
to his friends. Whoso fosters a wolf in his house is thought to feed a
thief and a pest for his own hearth."

Grep: "I did not, as thou thinkest, beguile the queen, but I was the
guardian of her tender estate. She increased my fortunes, and her favour
first brought me gifts and strength, and wealth and counsel."

Erik: "Lo, thy guilty disquiet lies heavy on thee; that man's freedom is
safest whose mind remains untainted. Whoso asks a slave to be a friend,
is deceived; often the henchman hurts his master."

At this Grep, shorn of his glibness of rejoinder, set spurs to his
horse and rode away. Now when he reached home, he filled the palace with
uproarious and vehement clamour; and shouting that he had been worsted
in words, roused all his soldiers to fight, as though he would avenge by
main force his luckless warfare of tongues. For he swore that he would
lay the host of the foreigners under the claws of eagles. But the king
warned him that he should give his frenzy pause for counsel, that blind
plans were commonly hurtful; that nothing could be done both cautiously
and quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle;
and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. Also,
said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and
stop his frantic empetuosity in time. Thus the king forced the headlong
rage of the young man to yield to reflection. But he could not wholly
recall to self-control the frenzy of his heated mind, or prevent the
champion of wrangles, abashed by his hapless debate, and finding armed
vengeance refused him, from asking leave at least to try his sorceries
by way of revenge. He gained his request, and prepared to go back to
the shore with a chosen troop of wizards. So he first put on a pole
the severed head of a horse that had been sacrificed to the gods, and
setting sticks beneath displayed the jaws grinning agape; hoping that
he would foil the first efforts of Erik by the horror of this wild
spectacle. For he supposed that the silly souls of the barbarians would
give away at the bogey of a protruding neck.

Erik was already on his road to meet them, and saw the head from afar
off, and, understanding the