ed with exhausted
patience.

"Go into the hands of the Trolls!" he swore. And again, "In the Fiend's
name!" And at last, "By the head of Odin, it would serve you well did
I take you at your word! It would serve you right did I turn you out to
starve. Were it not for your father's sake, and for the sake of my own
honor, I vow I would! Now hearken to this." Bending, he picked the boy
up by his collar and shook him. "Listen now to this, and understand that
you cannot move me by the breadth of a hair. I shall not let you go,
and you shall be my ward, whether you will or no. And if you run away,
soldiers shall go after you and bring you back, as often as you run. And
if you answer me now or anger me further--but I will not say that, for
it is your misfortune that makes you unruly, and you are weak-spirited
from hunger. Take this bread now for your meal, and that bench yonder
for your bed, and trouble me no more to-night. I would not be hard
upon you, yet it would be advisable for you to remember that I have
sufficient temper for one tent. Go as I bid you. I must meet with the
Jarl. Go! Do you heed my orders?"

Only one answer was possible. After a moment the page gave it in a low
voice.

"Yes, Lord King," he whispered, and crept away to his corner.

Chapter VI. The Training of Fridtjof The Page

A foolish man
Is all night awake,
Pondering over everything;
He then grows tired,
And when morning comes
All is lament, as before.
Ha'vama'l.

Who that has youth and a healthy body is not made a new being by a night
of dreamless slumber? What young heart is so despairing that to waken
into a fair day does not bring courage? Wakened by the sun's caress, to
the morning song of blowing trees, Randalin faced her future as became
the kinswoman of warriors.

"I do not know why it was that fear crept into my breast last night,"
she told herself severely, when the first wave of strangeness and grief
had broken over her, and she had come up again into the sparkling air.
"Great dangers have threatened me, but I have escaped them all with
great luck; it is poor-spirited of me to despair. And it must be that
witches had thinned my blood with water that I should have thought of
running away. To do that would be to lose my revenge forever. I should
become a creature without honor, like the girl with the necklace. To
stay is no less than my duty. If I think all the time of Fridtjof, it is
certain that