Had Ulf been older he would have passed it by unnoticed. As it was he merely asked Knut, with lifted eyebrow, "Are these captains thine advisers?" The King flushed hotly and turned to his flatterers. "Sayest thou I am the lord of the sea--that it will obey my word?" A dozen voices shouted "Yea!" in as many different ways. The King looked at them steadily for a moment, then with a half-smile waved his hand to his throne from which he had arisen, and said, "Carry me that to the shore, and do thou attend." It was low tide, but the young flood had begun to come in, and when the throne was placed well out toward the water, Knut seated himself and said, "Wait! now shall we see the value of advisers." Presently the incoming tide drew near, and the King arose, stretched out his hand to the waters and said, "Back! I, Knut the Great, command thee. Back!" Never a word replied the sea, but still the unceasing tide crept steadily on. "Back, I say! Knut, Master of the Sea, commands it!" Lip-lap, lip-lap came a gentle wave with a white fringe, circling in eddies landward, and splashed ever so gently under the royal chair; and if the King had not lifted them with haste the royal feet would have been wet. Then said the King, grimly smiling, "It is well my men have proved their worth as captains, and need not be judged by this." And his councillors were ashamed, and could not look him in the face for many days. But to Ulf he made presents of value. Then said Ulf, with a rueful laugh, "King Knut, I had deemed I had at least one thing worth offering as a gift to a King," and with the word he laid before him the white bear's hide, tanned with the head on, and in the cleft of it still stood the keen-edged battle-axe. Knut's eye twinkled, reading now the reason for the young man's discomposure, for in his hall lay stretched a wealth of just such trophies, and he asked how it was won. "Singlehanded," said Ulf. "A shaft to each leg, then spear to the throat and axe to the brain." Then said the King, significantly, "If I have eleven other bearskins, am I not eleven times the better able to know its worth? It _is_ a gift for a King!" and Ulf was content.