At that moment Olaf Haraldsson felt no love for Astrid. He hated her for having been the means of his humiliation. He knew everybody would think it right when he returned evil for evil, and if he did not avenge this insult, he would be held in derision by the Bards, and his enemies would no longer fear him. He had but one wish: to slay Astrid, to take her life. His anger was so violent that it craved for blood. If a fool had dared to put his fool's cap upon his head, would he not have torn it off, torn it to pieces, thrown it on the ground, trampled upon it? If he now laid Astrid a bloody corpse upon her ship, and sent her back to her father, people would say of King Olaf that he was a worthy descendant of Harald Haarfager. But King Olaf still held his sword in his hand, and under his fingers he felt the hilt, upon which he had once had inscribed: 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' 'Blessed are the meek,' 'Blessed are the merciful.' And every time he, in this hour of anguish, grasped his sword firmly in order to slay Astrid, he felt these words under his hand. He thought he could feel every letter. He remembered the day when he had first heard these words. 'This I will write in letters of gold on the hilt of my sword,' he had said, 'so that the words may burn in my hand every time I would swing my sword in fury, or for an unjust cause.' He felt that the hilt of the sword now burnt in his hand. King Olaf said aloud to himself: 'Formerly thou wert the slave of many lusts; now thou hast but one master, and that is God.' With these words he put back the sword into its sheath, and began to walk to and fro on the bridge. Astrid remained lying in the same position. King Olaf saw that she crouched in fear of death every time he went past her. 'I will not slay thee,' he said; but his voice sounded hard from hatred. King Olaf continued for awhile to walk backwards and forwards on the bridge; then he went up to Astrid, and asked her in the same hard voice what her real name was, and that she was able to answer him. He looked at this woman whom he had so highly treasured, and who now lay at his feet like a wounded deer--he looked down upon her as a dead man's soul looks with pity at the poor body which was once its dwelling.