foul
trick, by which I lost property that was already under my hands; lost
it forever, Troll take him! if it be really true that we are to make no
more warfare upon the lands south of the Watling Street."

"It is not possible!" Canute ejaculated. "He looks to be as truthful as
Balder."

Rothgar uttered his favorite grunt. "Never did I hear that Loke had
crooked eyes or a tusk, and black hair grows on both of them. I tell
you, I know it for certain. I have just been to find the English serf
who became my man after Brentford; and he has told me what he says
he tried to tell the night before we left Ivarsdale, but no one would
listen to him without pounding him,--that the servant-maid, who informed
him concerning the provision house, spoke also of a Danish page her lord
had, whom he treated with such great love that it was commonly said he
was bewitched. And before that, when the brat was telling you how the
Englishman had saved him from Norman's sword, it occurred to me that he
talked more as a woman talks of her lover than as a man speaks of his
foe. I had my mouth open to tax him with it, when you threw this duel at
me like a rock and knocked everything else out of my head."

"May the gallows take my body!" the King breathed. And he sat down upon
a grassy hummock as suddenly as though a rock had been thrown at him
that knocked the legs from under him. Nor did he get up immediately, but
remained gazing at the string of bright beads which English camp-fires
made along the opposite bluff, his face intent with pondering.

Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully.
"There is not an honest bone in the imp's body," he wound up. "It is
certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his
freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off."

"Certainly you are a very shrewd man," Canute murmured. But something
in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen
glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute's face was crimson with
suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold back
his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one inarticulate
snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying cloak and a
thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if the King had
not made him the most peremptory of gestures.

"No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you
intentionally or not! It is--it is--the--