I should become a creature without honor, like the
girl with the necklace. To stay is no less than my duty. If I think all the
time of Fridtjof, it is certain that I can hide it that I am a girl." Turning
in her furry bed, she rose cautiously upon her elbow and looked about.
The tent was empty, though scattered furs along the benches showed where
sleepers might have rested. But from outside, a clatter of hurrying feet and
excited voices broke suddenly upon her. Did it mean a battle? She sat up,
straining eye and ear. The jubilant voices shouted greetings that just missed
being intelligible. The sun, glancing from moving weapons, flashed through the
doorway in fantastic shapes.
While she was trying to unravel it all, one pair of the hurrying feet halted
before the entrance. After a muttered word with the sentinel, they came on and
brought the son of Lodbrok into view. The girl started up with a gasp of
alarm, then made the strange discovery that she was no longer afraid of him.
Though he showed against the linen wall as brawny and big of jowl as he had
loomed up the night before, she found herself moved only to dislike. What had
been the matter last night? Understanding nothing of the clairvoyant power of
sharpened nerves, she set it down tn cowardice, and put on an extra swagger
now as her eyes met his.
Rothgar surveyed the sprig of defiance with no more than a perfunctory
interest.
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