"It is not that, master," he said; and when he called me master (which I had forbidden him, for he was more of a comrade, and I would not have him remember whence I took him), I knew that he was in earnest--"not that, for I would not leave you; unless, indeed this means that you would have me go?" "No, comrade, that I would not. But you are downcast, and I thought that you might have the longing for home on you. Well, what is it?" "It is naught," he said. But so plain it was that somewhat was amiss that I pressed him, and at last he said that he would tell me if I would not be angry with him. We were alone at the time, sitting on a great log in the corner of the courtyard, waiting for supper. "Saw you aught strange about the robe which this young king had on yesterday, when you stood before him?" he asked first. "You were close to him." "I did not notice anything beyond that it was wonderfully wrought with gold and colours. The queen made it, they tell me." He sighed, and his face fell. "I have heard that the Christian folk hold most precious such robes as are marked with the blood of one who has died for his faith. Are you sure that this robe is not such an one?" "I know it is not. The queen made it new for the coronation." He was silent for a while, looking on the ground and shifting his foot in the dust, and some fear rose in my mind as to what he would tell me. "Eh, well," he said, sighing again, "mayhap the sun was in my eyes before I looked on him." "Is it the second sight again, Erling?" I asked in a low voice, for that was what I feared. "Ay. Methought I saw that royal robe all spotted with blood as he sat in it." "What does that portend?" I said. He lifted his eyes slowly to mine, and answered, "Why need you ask?" I did not answer him, for, in truth, I only asked with a half hope that he might have some other interpretation of this portent than that of violent death, which seemed the plain meaning of it--that is, if he saw aught, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I tried to think that his glance had met the sun for a moment before he looked on the king; but I could not think it, for in the hall was no chance thereof. And then he spoke again slowly, with his eyes still on the ground. "Thrond, who is my uncle, saw the same on the mail of my father not long before he fell. He said at that time that so it had often been in our family; but this has not come to me until I came here. I had no second sight up to this time." "It is sent for some reason, therefore," said I. "Now, is it possible to avert the doom which seems written?" He shook his head. "I have never heard so," he answered. "Yet the king does not seem fey," said I, "and there is no man in all this land who would harm him. Ah, maybe you saw the robe as of a saint, because all men hold him most saintly!"