brood, lying in death, the dagger yet dripping from the blow, thou wilt see thy own work, for thy hand was back of the murderer’s.”
The old woman tottered forward. “My Gudrun dead?” she shrilly screamed. “My Gudrun murdered?” Then fiercely—forgetting her fear of the towering king: “Thou hast done it!—thou whom the men of the Norseland call their bravest—thou hast slain her!”
Olaf looked at her with withering contempt. “I slay her? Thou fool, as well as traitor. Dost thou think the arm of Olaf Tryggevesson”—holding out that mighty member—“hath nothing better to waste itself upon but a weak wench, that had only courage to be false. Aye! my Lady Ingrid—false she was, of thy and Ironbeard’s true traitor blood. When I would have caressed her she laid her dagger at my heart. I flung it from me even as I flung her treachery and herself out of my path. Then I left her alone, and further I know not, save that the thralls rushed in to tell me she was dead, slain by her own hand with the dagger she and thou had whetted for me.”
The old woman’s anguish was terrible to witness, but Olaf did not spare her. “Aye! grieve, as well thou mayest, for as surely as thy maiden lies dead in yon chamber, thou hast murdered her—thou and thy teachings. Didst tell me she would be slow to confess her love? Aye! truly was she, for the first time she
