With a rush the craft shot half her length on shore and her crew poured out in a well-trained throng, which without delay swung into column and headed for the hall. Knut the Great eyed them with admiration. Never had he seen a sturdier set of men; and something in the lithe young leader at their head, all glittering with shining mail, reminded him of his own lost youth, of which but the moment before he had been dreaming. A young woman walked by the captain's side, fair-haired, fair-faced, with a gleam of gold in her collar and bracelets of gold on her round arm. Then at a sign, the men halted, and the pair came on alone. With his curiosity aroused, and in the free manner of the times, the King left his seat and came to the entrance to meet them. The light was better out of doors. Neither bow nor salute did the young man make until he was at the very portal; then he saw before him a slight, gray man, rather plain of dress, who looked rather than asked his business. "Is this the hall of Knut the Great?" "Yea." "I have come to have speech with him." "And thou?" The keen eyes supplied the rest of the question. "Ulf the Silent, of Sigurd's Vik," was the brief reply. The questioner started slightly as though the name was not unknown to him, and glanced quickly at the men beyond, but they had not stirred. Then after a moment, he said, "Come!" and wheeling, led the way back to the audience hall. Ulf saw his guide stride forward to an empty throne-seat into which he sank, and with his chin in his hand said, quietly, "I am Knut the King." For a breathing-space Ulf halted, startled. This the King! Then he recovered his wits again. "Sigurd's Vik is well governed; but men say England and Denmark are better ruled. This have I come to see, and with me Sigurd's daughter, now my wife." The King smiled, not ill-pleased at what he heard. "Ulf, of Sigurd's Vik, is not unknown to me by hearsay, and right glad am I to meet him, and to talk of the ways of ruling men. Yet if what I hear be true, he need not cross vik-mouth to find just ruling." And he had seats brought for them, and food and drink, as was the custom, sending, too, for his sister to receive Edith Fairhair as her guest. But Ulf, for once, appeared ill at ease to her who knew his ways so well. Then the King began to talk of government in words so wise, so thoughtful, that he forgot his own thoughts and listened heartily, planning to make good use of what he learned, in after days. The other men in the hall had gathered to meet the stranger, and they, too, said their word now and then, for those were the days when every man who had a good word to say in council was in no way backward about saying it. But some were not so courteous to the stranger as they might have been, and said one, when Ulf modestly raised a doubt in a case which he did not fully understand, "Know thou, stranger, King Knut is more than king of men. The sea itself obeys him."