more the impulse came to creep away,
like a wounded animal, and fight it out alone. She turned again to the
door.

"I will starve, then. Let me go."

Leaning at his ease in the great chair, the young King regarded his ward
thoughtfully. "It is not possible that the son of Frode the Fearless
should be a coward," he said at last; "but you are over-peevish, boy.
That you have never known government is easily seen. Listen now to
the truth of the matter. If you were a maiden, it would be easy for
me to--Are you listening?" He paused, for the slim figure had suddenly
become so statue-like that he suspected it of plotting another attack
upon the door.

The boy answered very low, "Yes, Lord King, I am listening."

Canute went on again: "I say that if you were a maiden,--if you were
your sister, to tell it shortly,--I could easily dispose of you in
marriage. Thus would you get protection, and your father's castle would
gain a strong arm to fight for it. I would wed you to my foster-brother,
Rothgar Lodbroksson, and thus bring good to both of--Are you finding
fault with that also?"

But the lad stood before him like a stone. If a faint cry had come from
him, it was not repeated; and there was nothing offensive about a hidden
face and shaking limbs.

The King continued more gently: "But since you were so simple as to be
born a boy, such good luck is not to be expected. It is the best that
I can do to offer you to become my ward and follow me as my page, until
the sword's game has decided between me and Edmund of England. But I do
not know where your ambition is if that does not content you. There are
lads in Denmark who would give their tongues for the chance. What say
you, Fridtjof the Bold?"

For a time it looked as if "Fridtjof the Bold" did not know what to say.
He stood without raising his hanging head or moving a muscle. Silence
filled the tent, while from outside leaked in the noise of the revel.
Then, through that noise or above it, there became audible the notes of
far-away horns. Edric Jarl was fulfilling his pledge. Cheers answered
the blast. An exclamation broke from the King's lips, and he leaped up.
At that moment, "Fridtjof the Bold" fell at his feet with clasped hands
and supplicating eyes.

"Let me go, Lord King," he besought passionately. "Let me go, and I
will ask nothing further of you. I will never trouble you again. Let me
go!--only let me go!"

Canute of Denmark is not to be blamed that he stamp