“Now for it! While they are waiting for Edmund to land; before there is anything to watch,” the Scar-Cheek commanded. “Tell what you told Canute with regard to the English King which made him so reckless as to agree to this bargain.” There was nothing for it but obedience. A flower in a thicket of thistles, a lamb in the midst of wolves, she sat and watched the tipping of the scales that had her fortune among their weights. A shout from the surging mass of English opposite told when the Ironside had landed; and as soon as it was seen whom he had chosen to accompany him as his witness, a buzz of excitement passed along the Danish line. “Edric! by all the gods, Edric Jarl!” “Now, for the first time, I believe that victory will follow Canute’s sword!” Brass Borgar ejaculated. “Since nothing less than the madness betokening death could cause Edmund to continue his trust in the Gainer, it is seen from this that he is a death-fated man.” From the others there came a volley of epithets, so foul a flight that the girl’s knuckles whitened in her struggles to keep her hands down from her ears. A picture rose in her mind of Sebert’s dream-lady, passing her waiting-time among soft-voiced maids, and her heart turned sick within her. It was little time that the pack gave her for revery, however; now it was Edric Jarl of whom they wanted to hear. “While they are talking about the terms, there is nothing to look at; tell us how the Gainer pulled the net around King Edmund,” the rough voices demanded. And again she was obliged to bend her wits to their task. But it came at last, the end that was the beginning. Suddenly a hand reached around her neck and shut over her mouth. “Stop! They are taking their places. Look!” He need not have added that last word; from that moment for many thousands of eyes there was but one object in the world,—the strip of rock-ribbed earth and the two figures that faced each other upon it. As they fixed their gaze on their champion, the English yelled exultantly, and the Danes bravely rivalled them in noise; but it was more a cry of rage and grief than a cheer. Now that the royal duellists stood forth together, stripped of cloak and steel shirt, and wearing no other helm than the golden circlet of their rank, their inequality was even more glaring than alarmed fancy had painted it. The crown of Canute’s shining locks reached only to the chin of the mighty Ironside; and the width of nearly two palms was needed on his shoulders. Borgar turned, with tears in his bleared eyes, and threw himself face-downward on the earth; and the fellow next to him, with the mien of a madman, thrust his mantle between his teeth and bit and tore at it like a dog. “It is murder,” he snarled, “murder.”