When all was ready the messenger was brought in between guards. Wrapped in dirty sheepskins, he swaggered to the centre of the room, and the light that fell on his tanned face showed a scar running the full length of his cheek. With his first glance, the Lord of Ivarsdale uttered an exclamation. “Now, by Saint Mary, I have seen you before, fellow! Were you not the leader of the band we drove away last month?” The Scar-Cheek laughed impudently. “I will not conceal it; yet I did not know that my beauty was so showy. The chief was wise to send Brown-Cloak to do the spying.” “Brown-Cloak! The beggar?” was cried all down the hall. But the messenger’s eyes had fallen on the black-haired boy, who stood staring at him from the fireside. His wide mouth opened in astonishment. “The King’s ward? Here is a happening!” he ejaculated. “If I am not much mistaken, Canute will be glad to find this out. It was his belief that you had got your death-blow at Scoerstan, and he took it ill.” The King’s ward made no other answer than to regard him with a strange mixture of attention and aversion; but the Etheling reached out and pushed the boy farther behind the great chair. “Fridtjof Frodesson is my captive and no longer concerns you,” he said briefly. “Give him no further thought, but come to your message.” The swaggering assurance of the man’s laugh was more offensive than rudeness would have been. “If I say that we will shortly set him free, I shall not be going very wide from my message. My errand hither is that I bring word from Rothgar Lodbroksson to surrender the Tower.” The page uttered a little cry, and his lord raised a hand mechanically to impose silence; but no one else seemed able to speak or to move. From the master in his chair to the serf by the door, they stared dumb-founded at the messenger. He, on his part, appeared to realize all at once that the time for formality had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he fastened his eyes on a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling’s chair and began monotonously to recite his lesson: “Rothgar, the son of Lodbrok, sends you greeting, Sebert Oswaldsson; and it is his will that you surrender to him the odal and Tower of Ivarsdale; as is right, because the odal was created and the Tower was built by Ivar Vidfadmi, who was the first son of Lodbrok and the father’s father’s father of my chief—-” In spite of himself, he was obliged to stop to take in breath. In the pause, the page bent toward his master, his face alight with a sudden fierce triumph. “Lord,” he whispered, “you can never get out! You are caught as though they had you in a trap!” Astounded, Sebert drew back to stare at him. “Fridtjof! It is not possible that you are unfaithful to me!” The boy’s only answer was to drop down upon the step and bury his face in his hands. And now the messenger had recovered his wind and his place.