the prize compared with the look her father gave her! yet, those
bracelets were of pure gold, and came from far across the seas.

"But where is Ulf?" said Sigurd, suddenly. "The lad is proud, and I
hope he has not failed."

"My thrall does not fail in what he tries to do!" said Edith, and the
jarls all laughed, save Sigurd, who shook his head with smiling
reproof, saying,

"The thrall waits till after the freeman, and that is well. Now, some
one call him."

Then Ulf the Silent stepped forward from behind the throng, and laid
before the jarls a package that was carefully wrapped in deerskin. It
gave a soft, musical tinkle as he laid it down and vanished in the
throng again. With laughter Jarl Sigurd stooped forward, saying,

"The lad was braver when he sent an arrow through my arm than he is
to-day," and untied the package. "It is not light, jarls. What!--by
Thor and Odin, and all the gods of Valhalla! when did man ever see the
like?"

Oh, what a rare sight it was!--thousands of tiny rings of steel,
cunningly woven together by the hand of one whose father and whose
father's father had worked in metal, and who had taught him all they
knew! The light rippled across the folds in flashes like molten
silver; the loose links along the edges rang like fairy bells, and not
one jarl in all his travels had ever seen a more beautiful shirt of
mail. A king of kings might be proud to wear it. Yet it was made by