ip
lowered its boats, and our noble guests have sailed up the river. I
challenged them, and received the answer: 'King Harald of Goetaland,
and Haralda (his wife, as it seems), wish to greet King Totila.'"

"Lead them to us! Duke Guntharis, Duke Adalgoth. Earl Teja, Earl
Wisand, and Earl Grippa, go to meet and accompany them here."

Presently, to the sound of strange and twisted horns made of shells,
and surrounded by twenty of their sailors and heroes clad in close
coats of mail, there appeared on the terrace two figures which far
overtopped even the slender Totila and his table companions.

King Harald bore upon his helmet the two wings--each several feet
long--of the black sea-eagle. The tail-feathers of the same bird
floated from his iron crest. Down his back fell the skin of a monstrous
black bear, the jaws and fore-paws of which hung from broad iron rings
upon his breast-plate. His coat, woven of iron wire, reached to the
knee, and was confined round the hips by a broad belt of seal-skin, set
with shells. His arms and legs were bare, but at once adorned and
protected by broad golden bracelets. A short knife hung from a steel
chain at his belt. In his right hand he carried a long forked spear
like a harpoon. His thick, bright yellow hair fell like a mane low down
upon his shoulders.

At his left hand stood--scarcely shorter by a finger's length--the
Walkyre-like form of his female companion.

Upon her head she wore a golden open helmet, decorated with the small
wings of the silver-gull. Her bright red hair, which had a metallic
lustre, fell from beneath it in a long straight mass over the small
strip of white bearskin which covered her back--more an ornament than a
mantle--almost to her ankles.

A closely-fitting mail, made of little scales of gold, betrayed the
incomparable figure of the Amazon, yielding to every movement of her
heaving bosom. Her under garment, which reached half-way between the
knee and ankle, was tastefully made of the white skin of the snow-hare.
Her arms were covered by sleeves made of rows of amber beads, which
glittered strangely in the evening rays of the southern sunshine.

Upon her left shoulder was gravely perched one of the delicate white
falcons of Iceland.

A small hatchet was stuck into her girdle. She carried over her
shoulder a long sweeping harp, surmounted with a swan's head and neck
of silver.

The Roman populace--their eyes opened wide in wonder--pressed after
thes