Unable to accomplish anything with Norby, it was more than ever important that Gustavus should be on terms of amity with Fredrik. For the moment it appeared that Fredrik would be fair. At all events, he had made Gustavus a generous promise about the guns, and his Cabinet kept Gustavus constantly informed about the acts of Norby. In February, when the lakes were frozen, the monarch sent, as Fredrik had suggested, for his ammunition, and intrusted to the same emissary a letter for the Danish king. This letter was in reply to one from Fredrik, asking for the surrender of a Danish refugee. Gustavus could not comply with his request, for the refugee was gone; but he seized again the opportunity to mention Sunnanväder. "We earnestly entreat you," were his words, "to write your Cabinet in Norway no longer to protect this man or any of his party." It was certainly time that something should be done by Fredrik, for at the very moment while Gustavus was writing this appeal, the Norwegian Cabinet were issuing a passport for the traitors through their realm; and to a request from Gustavus for their surrender, the Cabinet offered the absurd excuse that the fugitives themselves protested they were innocent. "However," it was added, "the fugitives will return if they are given your assurance that they may be tried, as priests, before a spiritual tribunal." In this reply the reason for the detention of the fugitives leaked out. They were high in office in the Church, and the archbishop of Trondhem, with whom they had taken refuge, feared the Lutheran tendencies of the king. Fredrik did not wholly share this fear, and on the 4th of March for the first time addressed the archbishop, commanding him to revoke the passport of the renegades. This letter producing no immediate effect, Gustavus waited about six weeks, and then despatched to the Cabinet of Norway a safe-conduct for the renegades to be tried before "a proper tribunal," and, if adjudged not guilty, to return to Norway. The passport was directed to the Cabinet of southern Norway, to whom the monarch used these words: "We marvel much at the language of your northern brothers, and particularly that they are deceived by the treachery of these rascals, which is well known hundreds of miles from here, and might be known in Norway if the people were not blind. I might tell you how they lay a long while in Dalarne, and in the name of the people sent deceitful letters through the land, to stir up hostility against us. But as soon as the people began to leave them, and the Dalesmen announced that these letters were not issued with their consent, they betook themselves to Norway.... If, now, the fugitives will come before a proper tribunal, we cannot and we would not refuse to let them do so. We therefore send a safe-conduct to guard them against all wrong, according to their request. If they do not come, it will be manifest whether they are innocent." The safe-conduct, it may be well to