h."

Chapter XVII. The Judgment of The Iron Voice

His power should
Every sagacious man
Use with discretion,
For he will find,
When among the bold he comes,
That no one alone is doughtiest.
Ha'vama'l.

Fold by fold, the sun's golden fingers drew apart the mists that hid the
valley. One by one, the red Severn cliffs were uncovered, and the wooded
steeps on which the rival hosts were encamped. Brighter and brighter
the river's silver gleamed through its veilings. Finally the moment came
when the last mist-wreath floated up like a curtain, and there lay open
the shining water, and the rocky islet it seethed about, and the
vision of two boats setting forth from the two shores amid the noise
of shouting thousands. It was the hour of the royal duel, when the
fate-thread of a nation, beaded with human destinies, lay between the
fingers of two men. What a scattering of the beads if the cord should be
cut!

Under the elms of the east bank, the daughter of Frode stood and watched
the boats set out; and the hands that hung at her side opened and
shut as though they were gasping for breath. For a moment she tortured
herself with the thought that she knew not which side to pray for, since
the victory of either would mean her beloved's undoing; then she forgot
Sebert's future in her own present. Turning, she found herself facing a
wall of stalwart bodies, a sea of coarse faces, and discovered, with
a sudden tightening of her muscles, that all the eyes which were not
following the boat were centred curiously upon herself.

Before she could take a step, the nearest warrior thrust out a hand and
caught her by her black locks. "Stop a little, my Bold One," he said
gruffly. "Now that you have a moment to spare from the high-born folk,
it is the wish of us churls to hear some of your news."

A score of heavy voices seconded the demand, and the wall gradually
curved into a circle around her. They were good-natured enough,--even
the grasp on her hair was roughly playful,--but her heart seemed to stop
in her as a swimmer's might the first instant he lost sight of land and
beheld only towering billows looming around him. She darted one swift
glance at her knife, and another at an old willow-tree that overhung the
bank, some thirty yards away. But even as she thought it, the hand left
her hair and closed about her wrist.

"No cause for knife-play or leg-play either, my hawk," the gruff voice
rebuke