“Hereward! Hereward!” and, in her passion, she seized him by both his hands. “I know you! I know that device upon your hand. At last! at last my hero,--my idol! How I have longed for this moment! How I have toiled for it, and not in vain! Good heavens! what am I saying?” And she tried, in her turn, to escape from Hereward’s mailed arms. “Then you do not care for that man?” “For him? Here! take my favor, wear it before all the world, and guard it as you only can; and let them all know that Torfrida is your love.” And with hands trembling with passion, she bound the ribbon round his helm. “Yes! I am Hereward,” he almost shouted; “the Berserker, the brain-hewer, the land-thief, the sea-thief, the feeder of wolf and raven,--Aoi! Ere my beard was grown, I was a match for giants. How much more now, that I am a man whom ladies love? Many a champion has quailed before my very glance. How much more, now that I wear Torfrida’s gift? Aoi!” Torfrida had often heard that wild battle-cry of Aoi! of which the early minstrels were so fond,--with which the great poet who wrote the “Song of Roland” ends every paragraph; which has now fallen (displaced by our modern Hurrah), to be merely a sailor’s call or hunter’s cry. But she shuddered as she heard it close to her ears, and saw, from the flashing eye and dilated nostril, the temper of the man on whom she had thrown herself so utterly. She laid her hand upon his lips. “Silence! silence for pity’s sake. Remember that you are in a maiden’s house; and think of her good fame.” Hereward collected himself instantly, and then holding her at arm’s length, gazed upon her. “I was mad a moment. But is it not enough to make me mad to look at you?” “Do not look at me so, I cannot bear it,” said she, hanging down her head. “You forget that I am a poor weak girl.” “Ah! we are rough wooers, we sea-rovers. We cannot pay glozing French compliments like your knights here, who fawn on a damsel with soft words in the hall, and will kiss the dust off their queen’s feet, and die for a hair of their goddess’s eyebrow; and then if they catch her in the forest, show themselves as very ruffians as if they were Paynim Moors. We are rough, lady, we English: but those who trust us, find us true.” “And I can trust you?” she asked, still trembling. “On God’s cross there round your neck,” and he took her crucifix and kissed it. “You only I love, you only I will love, and you will I love in all honesty, before the angels of heaven, till we be wedded man and wife. Who but a fool would soil the flower which he means to wear before all the world?” “I knew Hereward was noble! I knew I had not trusted him in vain!” “I kept faith and honor with the Princess of Cornwall, when I had her at my will, and shall I not keep faith and honor with you?” “The Princess of Cornwall?” asked Torfrida.