lf's nature to endure that another should be held
greater than himself. So, instead of rewarding his brother for his
service, he accused him and degraded him, and made another general in
his place.

"Now," said the soldiers, "our chief will surely rebel, and we will
follow his lead, and pluck down Ulf from the throne and set up our
Sigurd."

But Sigurd sternly silenced them, and bade them serve their king as they
feared him. He meanwhile departed sadly from his brother's court, and
came and dwelt alone in his Tower of the North-West Wind.

For many weeks the time passed slowly, as Sigurd brooded over his wrongs
and pined in idleness.

Yet this grieved him less than the secret visits of not a few of his old
comrades, who had deserted Ulf, and now came begging him to lead them
forth and rid the land of a tyrant. He sent them each sternly away,
bidding them, on pain of his anger, return to their duty and serve the
king; and they durst not disobey.

So passed many a weary month in the Tower of the North-West Wind, when
one bright summer day a little fleet of English ships sailed gaily up
the fiord under the castle walls.

Sigurd joyfully bade the voyagers welcome to his castle, for the chief
of the little band was Raedwald, an English king, whom Sigurd himself
only two years before had visited in his own land. There, too, he had
met not Raedwald only, but Raedwald's beautiful daughter, who now, with
her gay train of attendants, accompanied her father on this visit to his
friend and comrade.

And now the days passed gaily and only too swiftly for the happy Sigurd.
In the company of Raedwald and amid the smiles of the ladies, Ulf was
forgotten, and all the wrongs of the past vanished. The Tower of the
North-west Wind was no longer a gloomy fortress, but a gay palace, and,
like the summer day in the northern heavens, the sun of Sigurd's content
knew no setting.

Before the day of Raedwald's departure arrived a wedding had taken place
in the chapel of the good old Tower, and the English king, as he hauled
his anchors and set his sails westward, knew not whether to mourn over
the daughter he had given up or to rejoice over the son he had gained.

As for Sigurd, he could do nothing but rejoice, and some who saw him and
heard him laugh said, smiling--

"The queen his wife is a fairer sweetheart than was the king his
brother. Ulf and our country and all of us are forgotten in the smiles
of this little English mai