for in sooth all loved her, only they would make her
marry Sir Guy le bon amant.

In the topmost room I found her, alas! alas! lying on the floor, as I
said; I came to her and kissed her head as she lay, then raised her up;
and I took all my armour off and broke my sword over my knee.

And then I led her to the window away from the fighting, from whence we
only saw the quiet country, and kissed her lips till she wept and looked
no longer sad and wretched; then I said to her:

'Now, O Love, we must part for a little, it is time for me to go and
die.'

'Why should you go away?' she said, 'they will come here quick enough, no
doubt, and I shall have you longer with me if you stay; I do not turn
sick at the sight of blood.'

'O my poor Love!' And I could not go because of her praying face; surely
God would grant anything to such a face as that.

'Oh!' she said, 'you will let me have you yet a little longer, I see;
also let me kiss your feet.'

She threw herself down and kissed them, and then did not get up again at
once, but lay there holding my feet.

And while she lay there, behold a sudden tramping that she did not hear,
and over the green hangings the gleam of helmets that she did not see,
and then one pushed aside the hangings with his spear, and there stood
the armed men.

'Will not somebody weep for my darling?'

She sprang up from my feet with a low, bitter moan, most terrible to
hear, she kissed me once on the lips, and then stood aside, with her dear
head thrown back, and holding her lovely loose hair strained over her
outspread arms, as though she were wearied of all things that had been or
that might be.

Then one thrust me through the breast with a spear, and another with his
sword, which was three inches broad, gave me a stroke across the thighs
that hit to the bone; and as I fell forward one cleft me to the teeth
with his axe.

And then I heard my darling shriek.

SVEND AND HIS BRETHREN

A king in the olden time ruled over a mighty nation: a proud man he must
have been, any man who was king of that nation: hundreds of lords, each a
prince over many people, sat about him in the council chamber, under the
dim vault, that was blue like the vault of heaven, and shone with
innumerable glistenings of golden stars.

North, south, east, and west spread that land of his, the sea did not
stop it; his empire clomb the high mountains, and spread abroad its arms
over the valleys of them; all