lds of her garments, seemed to
float around her like music. She silently held out her hand to her
northern sister.

Haralda had cast a sharp and not very friendly look upon the Roman
girl; but admiration soon dispelled the angry surprise which had
overspread her countenance, and she said:

"By Freia's necklace! thou art the most lovely woman I have ever
beheld. I doubt whether a Wish-girl of Walhalla could compare with
thee. Dost thou know, Harald, whom this Princess resembles? Ten nights
ago we laid waste an island in the blue Grecian sea, and plundered a
columned temple. There stood a tall, icy-cold woman, made of white
stone; upon her breast was the figure of a head surrounded with snakes;
at her feet the night-bird; she was clad in a garment of many folds.
Swen unfortunately broke her to pieces because of the jewels in her
eyes. The King's bride resembles that marble goddess."

"I must translate what she has said to thee," said Totila, turning to
Valeria with a smile. "Thy poetical adorer, Pisa, could not have
flattered thee more delicately than this Bellona of the north. They
landed, so we were told, at Melos, and there broke the beautiful statue
of Athene, sculptured by Phidias. You have made great desolation, I
hear," he continued, turning to Harald, "in all the islands between
Cos, Chios, and Melos. What, then, has led you so peacefully to us?"

"That I will tell thee, brother; but only after more drink." And he
held out his cup to Adalgoth. "No, do not spoil the splendid juice with
water! Water should be salt, so that no one could drink it unless he
were a shark or a walrus. Water is good to carry us upon its back, but
not to be carried in our stomachs. And this vine-beer of yours is a
wonderful drink. I am soon tired of our mead; it is like a tame sweet
dish. But this vine-mead! the more a man drinks, the thirstier he
becomes. And if one drank too much--which is scarcely possible--it is
not like the intoxication of ale or mead, which makes a man ready to
pray to Asathor to hammer an iron ring round his temples. No; the
intoxication of the vine is like the sweet madness of the Skalds--a man
feels like a god! So much for the vine! But now I will tell thee how it
was that we came here."

CHAPTER XIV.

"Well," began King Harald, "our home is in Thuleland, as the Skalds
call it; in Goetaland, as we name it. For Thuleland is the land where
one does _not_ dwell; where only