crept into their silence.

After a while Sigurd said, still without looking around, "It seems to me
that the right-minded thing for me in this matter is to do what I should
desire you to do if you were in my place; therefore I offer you my
friendship."

Something blurred the bright river for an instant from Alwin's sight. "I
give you thanks," he said huskily. "Save Editha, I have not a friend in
the world."

He hesitated a while; then slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story
that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears. "The Danes set
fire to my father's castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen.
The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to
them,--though he had been my father's man for four seasons. It was from
him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue. They took me while I
slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats. They carried out
also the young maidens who attended my mother,--Editha among them,--and
not a few of the youth of the household, all that they chose for
captives. They took out all the valuables that they wanted. After that,
they threw great bales of hay into the hall, and set fire to them,
and--"

"The bloody wolves!" Sigurd burst out. "Did they not offer your mother
to go out in safety?"

"Nay, they had the most hatred against her." The bearing of his head
grew more haughty. "My mother was a princess of the blood of Alfred."

It happened that Sigurd had heard of that great monarch. His face
kindled with enthusiasm.

"Alfred! He who got the victory over the Danes? Small wonder they did
not love his kin after they had known his cunning! I know a fine song
about him,--how he went alone into the Danish camp, though they were
hunting him to kill him; and while they thought him a simple--minded
minstrel, he learned all their secrets. By my troth, that is good blood
to have in one's veins! Were I English, I would rather be his kinsman
than Ethelred's."

He stared at Alwin with glowing eyes; they were facing each other now.
Suddenly he stretched out his hand.

"It is naught but a piece of bad luck that you are Leif's thrall. It
might just as easily have happened that I were in your place. Now I will
make a bargain with you that hereafter I will remember this, and never
hold your thraldom against you."

Such a concession as that, few of the proud Viking race were generous
enough to make. Alwin could not but be moved by it. He took the
outstr