These stories filled their hearers with horror, terror, and fury; war and bloody retribution was their only cry; their hearts were filled with remorse that they had let Gustavus, their country's chief hope, depart unaided. Two of them, the fleetest snow-skaters of the region, were chosen to follow him and bring him back, and off they went through the forests, following his track, and at length finding him at Saelen, the last village in that section, and immediately at the foot of the lofty Norwegian mountains. A few words sufficed to tell him of the great change of feeling that had taken place, and with heart-felt joy Gustavus accompanied them back, to begin at length the great work of freeing his native land. _THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN II. THE TYRANT._ It was in November, 1520, that Christian II. of Denmark was crowned king of Sweden. Norway was his as well and he was monarch of the whole Scandinavian world. He had reached the highest point in his career, but so great had been his cruelty and treachery that all men feared and no man trusted him and he was on the brink of a sudden and complete overthrow. The man who had worn the crowns of three kingdoms was to spend years within the narrow walls of a dungeon, with none to pity him in his misery, but all to think that he deserved it all and more. Barely has tyranny met with such retribution on earth, and the "Fall of the Tyrant" will serve as a fitting title to an impressive tale. So sudden and successful was the rebellion of the Swedes under Gustavus Vasa, that in the summer of the year after the massacre in the Great Square of Stockholm the Danes held only that city and a few other strongholds in Sweden. One after another these fell, Calmar and Stockholm in 1523, and in June of that year Gustavus was chosen king of the land which his hand had freed. A young man still, he was at the beginning of a great and glorious reign. Before he became king, Christian, his great enemy, had ceased to reign. He had shown the same inhuman spirit in Denmark and Norway as in Sweden and had sown his whole dominion thick with enemies. This is the way his fall was brought about. In 1522 he issued a code of laws for Denmark of a wise and progressive character, especially in freeing the peasantry from the slavish condition in which they had been held, they before being open to purchase and sale like so many brute animals. Christian declared that every man should be his own master and took steps to limit the power and wealth of the clergy and to improve the commerce of the kingdom.