"When my countrymen as well as myself serve your king here in the north, Sir Marsk," answered the brave Count Henrik, "I feel we deserve thanks, and not mockery, whether we help him with prayer or with sword." As he said this he struck his hand with some violence on the hilt of his sword. The Marsk looked astounded. He was silent; but his perplexity increased on Thorkild Knudson, also addressing him in a serious tone. "Deem ye my victory over the brave heathen to be a miracle, Sir Marsk?" said the Swedish knight, with a calm smile. "Every thing is a miracle, if ye will. Without heavenly aid no victory is won on earth; that even your victorious King Waldemar was forced to acknowledge, yet that detracts not from his glory. I reckon the victory of Wolmar with the heaven-sent banner, to be that which gained him his fairest laurels. Our times are more chary of laurels. Sir Marsk! we will not rob each other of those we win with honour." "By all the martyrs!" exclaimed the Marsk, with wide oped eyes and crimson cheeks, "who ever thought of offending either you or the brave Count Henrik? By my soul! I understand ye not," he continued in an impatient tone; "were my brains as dull as those of other people, I should be badly off indeed." Count Henrik could not suppress a good-natured laugh at the absurd contrast between the Marsk's words and his angry tone. The misunderstanding was soon set to rights, and the conversation turned on former and recent warlike expeditions. Without thinking of what might awaken bitter recollections in the king's mind, especially on this day, the Marsk now talked in a loud voice of the feud, with Marsk Stig, and the taking of Hjelm, at which he himself had been present, under David Thorstensen's banner. "Yet you took not the daring Marsk Stig, either dead or alive," said Count Henrik; "'tis a strange story they tell here of his disappearance." "His death, as his life, is shrouded in darkness and mystery," observed the Swedish knight. "With us also he hath a dreaded name." "He was a great general, though," said Count Henrik. "I would have given much to have seen him. Was he as tall as Sir Niels Brock or the Duke of Langeland?" "He had a finer presence than either Niels Brock or Duke Longshanks, if he measured not the same length. In that point, perhaps, both you and I might have been his match; but he was a very devil of a fellow,--truly, I believe neither Germany nor Sweden could boast of one like him." "It is true we cannot boast of so highly esteemed a regicide," said Count Henrik, in an offended tone. "I desire not to rival his fame." "But, by all the martyrs! what is the matter now?" exclaimed the astounded Marsk; "think ye I wished for aught better in the world than to have knocked out his confounded brains? Therefore I may surely say without offence, that neither you nor Marsk Knudson have seen his match."