rrible young guardian--the battle-madness--whichever
way she looked, a new spectre confronted her. Helpless in their grip,
she tossed to and fro in agony--to and fro.

Though it was so tortured that she could not tell it from her waking
thoughts, sleep must have come to her; for when at last she reached the
point where she could endure it no longer and struggled up, panting, to
her elbow, to try to recall herself by a sight of those about her,
she found that the hum of excited voices was stilled, and the silence
throbbed with the deep breathing of sleepers. From under the canopy
of darkness the fiery spears had dropped away, leaving the thick folds
sagging lower and lower. Swarming under its shelter, the shadow-shapes
were closing in upon her.

For a while she watched them absently; then a whim of her tortured brain
poisoned them also. They became terrible nameless Things, mouthing at
her, darting upon her. She drew her eyes resolutely away and set herself
to listening to the breathing that throbbed in a dozen keys through the
silence.

Almost at her feet, the Etheling was stretched out in his cloak,
motionless as the fallen tree. Her face was slowly relaxing when, a
second time, memory betrayed her. Just so, she recollected, Leofwine's
son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow
of the King's fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost
convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She
ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those
weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives he was daring!

The next instant, she had thrown herself down with terror-widened eyes,
and was trying to bury her face in the leaves, while the tongueless
mouth of every shadowy shape seemed to shriek above her,--

"Odin sends you revenge!"--"It is the will of Odin that has drawn
you together!"--"Strange and wonderful is the way in which you are
hesitating!"--"Would you become like the girl with the necklace?"--"Are
you a coward, that you do not prefer to die in good repute rather than
live in the shame of neglecting your duty?"

She flung up her haggard face in appeal. "No, no, I am not a coward,"
her spirit cried within her. "I was brave in the battle. It is not death
I fear; but I cannot kill! Odin, have mercy on me! I cannot kill. I have
tried to be brave, but I am really a woman; it is not possible for me to
have a man's heart."

The grinning