Not more
than they have called me coward, have men ever called me stingy--"
"And when have men called me greedy?" the Jotun bellowed. "Your thoughts have
got a bad habit of lying about me if they say that it was greed for land which
made me take your judgment angrily. Except for the honor of my stock, what
want I with land while I have a ship to bear me? I tell you, now as
heretofore, that it was your treachery which unsheathed a sword between us."
"Rothgar my brother,--" the veil was rent from the King's face and he had
stepped from the dais and seized the other by the shoulders as though he would
wrestle bodily with him,--" by the Holy Ring, I swear that I have never
betrayed you! If you grudge not the land to the Englishman, you have no cause
to grudge him anything under Ymer's skull. Can a man change his blood?--for so
much a part of me is my friendship for you. Time never was when it was not
there, and it would be as possible to fill my veins with Thames water as to
put an Englishman into your place. Can you not understand--"
But Rothgar's hand had fallen upon the other's breast and pushed him backward
so that he was forced to catch at the chair-arm to save himself from falling.
"Never get afraid about that," he sneered. "Since we slept in one cradle, I
have been a thick-headed Thrym and your Loke's wit has fooled me into doing
your bidding and fighting your battles and giving you my toil and my limbs and
my faith, but wisdom has grown in me at last.
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