he ladies think that it is my part to do so."

"So you asked them? Is that why fair Sexberga is so dull and
restless?"

I laughed, for he had heard Ottar jesting about the fair maid at
Penhurst more than once.

"No," I answered. "She has been crossing her lover, and he is in
dudgeon for a while--that is all."

"I am glad," he said. "Asked you aught of Uldra?"

"I have not spoken of it to her."

"Is that so?" said Olaf, smiling. "Now she is likely to have more
than common interest in you, for one reason or another."

Then I said frankly, knowing what he meant:

"And I in her. That is partly the reason why I must go with
Wulfnoth and Godwine westward. And the rest of the reason is this,
that I would be near Eadmund. And maybe if I looked to find more
reason yet it would be to leave Sexberga to work out matters
without having me to fall back on when Eldred is to be made
jealous."

Thereat Olaf laughed long.

"You have had an ill time with the womenfolk of late," he said, and
it was true enough.

"I have," said I, "and I am tired thereof. I shall be glad to be
where byrnies and swords are more common than kirtles and
distaffs."

Yet in my mind I knew that I should not leave Uldra with much
cheerfulness. Such companionship as ours had been, strange and full
of peril, was a closer bond than even the care of me that had made
me think twice or more about Sexberga. Thoughts of her came lightly
in idleness, but when I thought of Uldra, there was comradeship
that had borne the strain of peril.

Now I knew well what that comradeship might easily ripen into, and
maybe, because I knew it, what I would not allow had begun. But
Uldra had never given me any reason to think that this was so with
her.

Olaf said that maybe I was right, and after that we talked of his
doings, wondering now when we should meet again, for we were going
different ways. Our parting was not as it had been before, when we
knew that sooner or later we should forgather in one place or the
other.

"I think, my cousin," he said, "that the time will soon come when I
shall head north again for Norway, and I long for the sign that I
must go. I am going to sail now towards Jerusalem Land, that I may
at least try to see the Holy Places before I die. It may be that I
shall reach that land, and it may be not, but when the sign comes I
must turn back and go to fight the last fight that shall be between
Christian and heathen in our country."

So he s