ge it shall not be looked upon as breaking
the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your
following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second
time. Only,"--he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other's
ribs,--"only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh.
Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon
you."

"I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me," Rothgar said
sulkily. "It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I
told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance of
choking much on her stories."

The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. "I will not deny
that," he said gravely; "and have I not said that I expect to be angry
about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with
much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered
at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should
have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that
lying story about her sister's death--" His face flushed as though
he were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his
foster-brother's observation did not tend to mollify him.

"And not only to offer it," the son of Lodbrok chuckled, "but to cram it
down his throat and make him swallow it."

Canute's heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the frosty
ground. "She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid that I
shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she been
no more than her father's daughter, her behavior would have been
sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold
her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his
thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am
a king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than
strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here
to-night."

Chapter XIX. The Gift of The Elves

Fair shall speak
And money offer,
Who would obtain a woman's love.
Ha'vama'l.

It was the edge of a forest pool, and a slender dark-haired girl bending
from the brink to see herself in the water. Looking, she smiled,--and
small wonder!

Below her, framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born
maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle
lent new grace to her l