pleasanter on that account. From under his lowering shaggy brows he appeared
to see without being seen; and one distrusted his hidden eyes as a traveller
in the open distrusts a skulker in the thicket.

He said in his measured voice, "In that matter my opinion stands with Canute.
When bloodshed is unnecessary, it becomes a drawback. Craft is greatly to be
preferred. One does not cross deep snow by stamping through it on iron-shod
feet; one slides over it on skees."

Over the brown fists, the fierce bright eyes bent themselves upon him in his
turn. The biting young voice said, "It is likely that Thorkel the Tall speaks
from experience. It stands in my memory how well craft served him when he had
deserted my father for Ethelred and then became tired of the Englishman. To
procure himself peace, he was forced to creep back to my feet like a dog that
has been kicked. Was there gold enough in his bribe to regild his fame?"

The gnarled old face of Thorkel the Tall grew livid; growling in his grizzled
beard, his hand moved instinctively toward his sword. But Rothgar caught his
arm with a boisterous laugh.

"Slowly, old wolf!" he admonished. "Never snarl at the snapping of the cub you
have raised."

The King had not moved at the threatening gesture, and he did not move now,
but he echoed the laugh bitterly. "In that, you say more truth than you know,
foster-brother. He is a wolf, and I am a wolf's cub, and you are no better. We
are all a pack of ravening beasts, we Northmen, that have no higher ambition
than to claw and use our teeth. Talk of high-mindedness to such--bah!" He
flung his arms apart in loathing; then, in a motion as boyishly weary as it
was boyishly petulant, crossed them on the table before him and pillowed his