he said, "they caught me but a little while after I had
left you--as I set snares for rabbits on the hill. I let them come
to me, thinking them some of the king's men who are kindly. Then
they said they needed a guide through the country to the sea, and
kept me with them."

Then Olaf said to him:

"No ill will come of this seeing of the White Lady, for she came to
save Redwald your lord; you may sleep in peace therefore, but it
would be unlucky to say that you saw her."

Then the man said that he would not speak of the matter, and it was
plain that he dared not do so. But he went away cheerfully enough,
with his mind at rest from its fears.

"It would be ill luck for me if Rani heard of this," said Olaf,
looking ruefully at us; "for we cannot deny that he warned us. My
foster father loves rating a king now and then, though it be only a
small one like myself."

So we said nought that night, and none asked where we had been. Now
I slept next to Olaf, and in the night I woke with a new terror on
me, and I put my hand on his and woke him.

"My king," I whispered, "what if Gunnhild and Hertha are indeed in
the woods yonder? These Danes will have found them."

The king was silent for a moment, for the fear that my guess as to
their hiding place might be right came to him also before he gave
the matter thought.

"It is not likely. The thought of danger makes it seem possible
again," he said. "But I like not these prowling Danes--they are
looking for hiding places for themselves."

"She was safe before," I said, but a great fear came to me with his
words.

There had been nought to drive the Danes to seek sheltered spots
before, now they were sure to do so.

"This matter is not in our hands," said the king, when I said as
much. "We can do nought. Pray, therefore, and sleep again. I think
that you need fear little."

Then after a while he spoke once more.

"Redwald, saw you aught upon the mere while we sat in the canoe in
its midst?"

"Aye, my king," I answered, knowing what he meant.

"I saw her also," he said.

So it had been no fancy of mine, but the White Lady of our house
had indeed passed before my eyes. I began to wonder if this
portended aught to me, but soon I thought that it did not, for the
like peril in which I had been, and even then had hardly escaped
from, had not befallen any of my kin, as I was in peril at her own
place, which was a new thing. So I judged that she showed her
thought of us