u to have wished me
luck."

Anything further was drowned in the bear's roar, as he took a swift
waddling step forward and threw out his terrible paws. Even Leif's huge
frame could not withstand the shock of the meeting. His left hand caught
the beast by the throat and, with sinews of iron, held off his foaming
jaws; but the shock of the grappling lost him his footing. They fell,
clenched, and rolled over and over on the ground; those terrible hind
feet drawing up and striking down with surer and surer aim.

Alwin could endure it no longer. "Let me have him now!" he implored. "It
is time to leave him to me. The next stroke, he will tear you to pieces.
I claim my turn."

It is doubtful if anyone heard him: at that moment, swaying and
staggering, the wrestlers got to their feet. In rising, Leif's hold on
the bear's throat slipped and the shaggy head shot sideways and fastened
its jaws on his naked arm, with a horrible snarling sound. But at the
same moment, the man's right arm, knife in hand, shot toward the mark it
had been seeking. Into the exposed body it drove the blade up to its
hilt, then swerved to the left and went upward. The stroke which the
chisel-shod paws had tried for in vain, the little strip of steel
achieved. A roar that echoed and re-echoed between the low hills, a
convulsive movement of the mighty limbs, and then the beast's muscles
relaxed, stiffening while they straightened; and the huge body swayed
backward, dead.

From the chief came much the same kind of a grunt as had come from the
bear at the fall of his foe. Glancing with only a kind of contemptuous
curiosity at his wounded arm, he stepped quickly to the side of his
prostrate follower and bent over him.

"You have got what you deserve for breaking my orders," he said, grimly.
"Yet turn over that I may attend to your wounds before you bleed to
death."

In the activity which followed, Robert of Normandy took no part. He
leaned against a tree with his arms folded upon his breast, his eyes
upon the slain bear which half of the party were hastily converting into
steaks and hide. The men muttered to each other that the Southerner was
in a rage because he had lost his chance, but that was only a part of
the truth. His fixed eyes no longer saw the bear; his ears were deaf to
the voices around him. He saw again a shadowy room, lit by leaping
flames and shifting eyes; and once more a lisping voice hissed its
"jargon" into his ear.

"I see Leif Er