waiting-time among soft-voiced maids, and her heart turned
sick within her.

It was little time that the pack gave her for revery, however; now it
was Edric Jarl of whom they wanted to hear.

"While they are talking about the terms, there is nothing to look at;
tell us how the Gainer pulled the net around King Edmund," the rough
voices demanded. And again she was obliged to bend her wits to their
task.

But it came at last, the end that was the beginning. Suddenly a hand
reached around her neck and shut over her mouth. "Stop! They are taking
their places. Look!"

He need not have added that last word; from that moment for many
thousands of eyes there was but one object in the world,--the strip of
rock-ribbed earth and the two figures that faced each other upon it.

As they fixed their gaze on their champion, the English yelled
exultantly, and the Danes bravely rivalled them in noise; but it was
more a cry of rage and grief than a cheer. Now that the royal duellists
stood forth together, stripped of cloak and steel shirt, and wearing no
other helm than the golden circlet of their rank, their inequality
was even more glaring than alarmed fancy had painted it. The crown of
Canute's shining locks reached only to the chin of the mighty Ironside;
and the width of nearly two palms was needed on his shoulders.

Borgar turned, with tears in his bleared eyes, and threw himself
face-downward on the earth; and the fellow next to him, with the mien
of a madman, thrust his mantle between his teeth and bit and tore at it
like a dog. "It is murder," he snarled, "murder."

Of all the Northmen, the young King alone appeared serenely undisturbed.
When he had saluted the Ironside with royal courtesy, he met his sword
as though he were beginning a practising bout with his foster-brother.
Smoothly, evenly, without haste or fury, the blades began to sing their
wordless song to the listening banks.

After a time Borgar dared to raise his face from the grass. "Is he yet
alive?" he whispered.

The men did not seem to hear him. Humped over the earth, with starting
eyes and necks stretched to their uttermost, they were like so many
boulders. Nor did Frode's daughter seem to feel that the hand the Brass
One had raised himself upon was crushing her foot; she did not even
glance toward him as she answered: "Simpleton! Do you think the King
does not know how to handle his weapon? If only his strength--"

Her sentence was not finished, and