Like a flash the keen blade fled across the hall, straight at Gerda as she stood fearless before him, and I was only just in time. I stood on her right, and my left arm caught it. The blade went through the muscles of the forearm, and stayed there, but that was of no account. Gerda's light mail would hardly have stopped it. She gave a little cry, and I set my arm behind me, smiling. But the men saw and roared, and there was not one on the side of the man who would do so evil a deed. They made a rush for the dais, overturning the tables, and hustling aside Eric's men, who were in their way, else there would have been an end of Arnkel. Maybe in the long run it had been as well for him, but in the scuffle he opened the door behind him and rushed out. I heard a shout from outside, and then a trampling, and thereafter a silence. Asbiorn was not far off. Afterwards I found that he had a ladder against the wall, and a man was watching through a high window all that went on, in case we needed help. Whereby it happened that Arnkel ran into his arms. Some of Asbiorn's men came in as soon as that was done, and the courtmen huddled back at the sight of these newcomers, whose swords were out. Gerda called to them that these were friends, and bade our men sheathe their weapons. There was quiet then, and Gerda looked round to me. Phelim had taken charge of my arm at once, and the long blade was out, and a scarf, which some girl who had not lost her senses had handed him, was round the wound. "Not much harm done," he said, smiling at Gerda, who thanked him in words and me with a look. Now the folk crowded round us with great shouts of welcome, and the men came to thrust forward the hilts of their weapons that she should touch them, in token of homage given and accepted. The women were trying to reach her also, with words of joy and praise. So I took her through them all to the high place, and set her there in Thorwald's chair, and Gorm the Steward passed round some word, and came himself with a silver cup full of mead, and set it in her hand, and whispered to her. Whereon she smiled and rose up, and held the cup high, and cried to her folk: "Skoal, friends, and thanks!" And all down the hall, from her own folk and from Hakon's, and even from those strangers, Eric's men, came the answer: "Skoal to Gerda the Queen, and welcome!" And then one lifted his voice and cried: "Skoal to Jarl Malcolm!" Men took that up, and it was good to hear them. Gerda gave me the cup her lips had just touched, and I drank "skoal" to them in turn, and so Gerda the Queen had come home.