her, if only
she would tell him where she dwelt and her name; and withal he sent three
knights to escort her some way toward the city; then he turned and rode
away with all his knights but those three, who, when they knew that he
had quite gone, she says, began to talk horribly, saying things whereof
in her terror she understood the import only: then, before worse came to
pass came I and slew two, as I said, and the other ran away 'lustily with
a good courage'; and that is the sword of one of the slain knights, or,
as one might rather call them, rascally caitiffs.'

The old man's thoughts seemed to have gone wandering after his son had
finished; for he said nothing for some time, but at last spoke
dejectedly:

'Eric, brave son, when I was your age I too hoped, and my hopes are come
to this at last; you are blind in your hopeful youth, Eric, and do not
see that this king (for the king it certainly was) will crush us, and not
the less surely because he is plainly not ungenerous, but rather a good,
courteous knight. Alas! poor old Gunnar, broken down now and ready to
die, as your country is! How often, in the olden time, thou used'st to
say to thyself, as thou didst ride at the head of our glorious house,
'this charge may finish this matter, this battle must.' They passed
away, those gallant fights, and still the foe pressed on, and hope, too,
slowly ebbed away, as the boundaries of our land grew less and less:
behold this is the last wave but one or two, and then for a sad farewell
to name and freedom. Yet, surely the end of the world must come when we
are swept off the face of the earth. God waits long, they say, before He
avenges his own.'

As he was speaking, Siur and Cissela came nearer to him, and Cissela, all
traces of her late terror gone from her face now, raising her lips to his
bended forehead, kissed him fondly, and said, with glowing face,

'Father, how can I help our people? Do they want deaths? I will die. Do
they want happiness? I will live miserably through years and years, nor
ever pray for death.'

Some hope or other seemed growing up in his heart, and showing through
his face; and he spoke again, putting back the hair from off her face,
and clasping it about with both his hands, while he stooped to kiss her.

'God remember your mother, Cissela! Then it was no dream after all, but
true perhaps, as indeed it seemed at the time; but it must come quickly,
that woman's deliverance, or not at