So passed many a weary month in the Tower of the North-West Wind, when one bright summer day a little fleet of English ships sailed gaily up the fiord under the castle walls. Sigurd joyfully bade the voyagers welcome to his castle, for the chief of the little band was Raedwald, an English king, whom Sigurd himself only two years before had visited in his own land. There, too, he had met not Raedwald only, but Raedwald's beautiful daughter, who now, with her gay train of attendants, accompanied her father on this visit to his friend and comrade. And now the days passed gaily and only too swiftly for the happy Sigurd. In the company of Raedwald and amid the smiles of the ladies, Ulf was forgotten, and all the wrongs of the past vanished. The Tower of the North-west Wind was no longer a gloomy fortress, but a gay palace, and, like the summer day in the northern heavens, the sun of Sigurd's content knew no setting. Before the day of Raedwald's departure arrived a wedding had taken place in the chapel of the good old Tower, and the English king, as he hauled his anchors and set his sails westward, knew not whether to mourn over the daughter he had given up or to rejoice over the son he had gained. As for Sigurd, he could do nothing but rejoice, and some who saw him and heard him laugh said, smiling-- "The queen his wife is a fairer sweetheart than was the king his brother. Ulf and our country and all of us are forgotten in the smiles of this little English maiden." But three days after Raedwald had sailed a storm broke over the Tower of the North-West Wind. The summer sea lashed furiously against the rocks, and far up the fiord the angry breakers rushed in, so that no boat could live upon their surface for an hour. That night as Sigurd sat heedless of the hurricane without and feasted with his lords and ladies, they came and told him that a raft had been driven ashore at the foot of the castle, with a man upon it half dead. Sigurd bade them instantly bring him to the castle, and give him fire and clothing and food, to revive him in his unhappy plight. This they did, and presently came to the hero with the hews that the man lived and desired to speak with his deliverer. So Sigurd ordered him to be brought up. And as the tempest raged without, his heart rejoiced to know that one man at least had been saved from its ravages. The man was of the common order, and though clothed in a rough woodman's suit it was plain to see he was a soldier. He fell at the feet of the prince and poured forth his thanks for the shelter given him that night. "And who art thou?" asked Sigurd, to whom such thanks were never welcome. "I am a servant of King Ulf thy brother." At the mention of the king's name the faces of those present fell, and Sigurd asked, sternly-- "And what is thy errand here?"