After a while Sigurd said, still without looking around, “It seems to me that the right-minded thing for me in this matter is to do what I should desire you to do if you were in my place; therefore I offer you my friendship.”

Something blurred the bright river for an instant from Alwin’s sight.  “I give you thanks,” he said huskily.  “Save Editha, I have not a friend in the world.”

He hesitated a while; then slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears.  “The Danes set fire to my father’s castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen.  The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to them,—­though he had been my father’s man for four seasons.  It was from him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue.  They took me while I slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats.  They carried out also the young maidens who attended my mother,—­Editha among them,—­and not a few of the youth of the household, all that they chose for captives.  They took out all the valuables that they wanted.  After that, they threw great bales of hay into the hall, and set fire to them, and—­”

“The bloody wolves!” Sigurd burst out.  “Did they not offer your mother to go out in safety?”

“Nay, they had the most hatred against her.”  The bearing of his head grew more haughty.  “My mother was a princess of the blood of Alfred.”

It happened that Sigurd had heard of that great monarch.  His face kindled with enthusiasm.

“Alfred!  He who got the victory over the Danes?  Small wonder they did not love his kin after they had known his cunning!  I know a fine song about him,—­how he went alone into the Danish camp, though they were hunting him to kill him; and while they thought him a simple—­minded minstrel, he learned all their secrets.  By my troth, that is good blood to have in one’s veins!  Were I English, I would rather be his kinsman than Ethelred’s.”

He stared at Alwin with glowing eyes; they were facing each other now.  Suddenly he stretched out his hand.

“It is naught but a piece of bad luck that you are Leif’s thrall.  It might just as easily have happened that I were in your place.  Now I will make a bargain with you that hereafter I will remember this, and never hold your thraldom against you.”

Such a concession as that, few of the proud Viking race were generous enough to make.  Alwin could not but be moved by it.  He took the outstretched hand in a hard grip.

“Will you do that?” he said; and it seemed for a time as though he could not find words to answer.  At last he spoke:  “If you will do that, I promise on my side that I will forgive your Northern blood and your lordship over me, and love you as my own brother.”

CHAPTER V

THE IRE OF A SHIELD-MAIDEN

With insult or derision
Treat thou never
A guest or wayfarer;
They often little know,
Who sit within,
Of what race they are who come. 

          Ha’vama’l