steady, and the boat stanch and swift. There has
been rain too, gentle, and enough to stave off the utmost thirst.

All this she tells the king truly; and then he must know how she
came to lose her own shore. And at that she weeps, but is ready. In
the long hours she has conned every tale that may be made, and it
is on her lips.

She is the orphan daughter of a Danish jarl, she says, and her
father has been slain. She has been set adrift by the chief who has
taken her lands, for her folk had but power to ask that grace for
her. He would have slain her, but that they watched him. Doubtless
he had poisoned their minds against her, or they would not have
suffered thus far of ill to her even. Otherwise she cannot believe
so ill of them. It is all terrible to her.

And so, with many tears, she accounts for her want of oars, and
provides against the day when some chapman from beyond seas shall
know her and tell the tale of her shame. At the end she weeps, and
begs for kindness to an outcast pitifully.

There is no reason why men should not believe the tale, and told
with those wondrous tear-dimmed eyes on them, they doubt not a word
of it. It is no new thing that a usurper should make away with the
heiress, and doubtless they think her beauty saved her from a worse
fate.

So in all honour the maiden is taken to Lincoln, and presently
given into the care of one of the great ladies of the court.

But as they ride homeward with the weary maiden in the midst of the
company, Offa the king is silent beyond his wont, so that the thane
who rode yonder with him asks if aught is amiss.

"Naught," answers Offa. "But if it is true that men say that none
but a heaven-sent bride will content me, maybe this is the one of
whom they spoke."

Now, if it was longing for power and place which had tempted this
maiden to ill in the old home, here she sees her way to more than
her wildest dream plain before her; and she bends her mind to
please, and therein prospers. For when wit and beauty go hand in
hand that is no hard matter. So in no long time it comes to pass
that she has gained all she would, and is queen of all the Mercian
land, from the Wash to the Thames, and from Thames to Trent, and
from Severn to the Lindsey shore; for Offa has wedded her, and all
who see her rejoice in his choice, holding her as a heaven-sent
queen indeed, so sweetly and lowly and kindly she bears herself.
Nor for many a long year can she think of aught wh