if you will do my bidding. Take the boy that stands there, and
throw him into the sea, that he drown. Fear nothing: the penalty will be
mine, not yours.'

'Your bidding shall be done,' answered the fisherman, 'though the deed
is but little to my liking.'

'So be it,' said the earl, and went home to hold counsel with his family
how best to take possession of the crown.

Grim took down a cord from a hook in the roof, and went out to the
child, who screamed with terror as he drew near, but there was no one to
help him, and Grim thrust a cloth in his mouth to stifle his cries,
while he bound his hands behind his back with a cord. When this was
done, he put the boy in a black bag, and carried him to his wife, who
flung him on the floor, where he lay for many hours, thinking every
moment that he would be thrown down a well or stabbed by a dagger.

* * * * *

At midnight, when all was still, and the men in the ships were sleeping
soundly, Grim arose, and told his wife to kindle a fire and to light a
candle.

'Why, there is a light in the room already,' said she, 'and it seems to
come from the farthest corner, and to shine as brightly as if it were
the sun itself'; and with that she sprang out of bed and ran over the
floor, calling to Grim to follow her.

And in truth it was as she had said, for round the bag which held the
boy a brilliant light was shining.

'If we touch him we shall rue it all our lives,' she whispered to her
husband; then, stooping, she cut the knots which held the bag, and drew
out Havelok, who was well-nigh dead with fright and suffocation. Next
she stripped him of his clothes, and on his shoulder she found the mark
of a tiny cross, from which the light came.

'He is born to be king,' said Grim softly, 'and surely it is he and no
other who is the son of Birkabeyn, and who some day shall come to his
own. It is easy to see that he will grow into a man, tall and strong,
who shall come back from over the sea where I shall send him, and avenge
himself on the traitor.' Then Grim fell on his knees before Havelok and
prayed his forgiveness.

'You shall stay here awhile,' he said, 'till I can fit out a ship, and
in it we will all set sail, you, and I, and my wife and my three sons,
but it must be done in secret, lest the earl should come to know of it.'

So they gave Havelok bread to eat and milk to drink, and laid him in a
bed in a dark corner, where no man could see him