Now there went a sigh of wonder among the chiefs, and Havelok looked up as if he followed the going of one whom he would not lose, and I know that he saw Gunnar after he was unseen to us.

“Surely,” he said, “surely that was my father who was here?”

And Sigurd answered, “With your own call you called him, and he was here.”

But now the last lurking doubt was gone, and there was no more delay, for the chiefs crowded with shouts of joy to the high place, and they knelt to Havelok and hailed him as king then and there; and so they led him to the great door of the hall, and the mightiest of them raised him high on a wide shield before all the freemen who waited on the green that is round the jarl’s house, and they cried, “Skoal to Havelok the king!”

And there was in answer the most stirring shout that a man may hear—­ the shout of a host that hail the one for whom they are content to die.

That was the first day of the reign of Havelok the king; and now there were two kings in the land, and one was loved as few have been loved, and the other was hated.  And one was weak in men, as yet, while the other was strong.

Now Sigurd bade all those who were present gather in solemn Thing, that they might make Havelok king indeed; and that was a gathering of all the best in our quarter of the land, so that all would uphold what they had done.  And when they were gathered in the great hall in due order, the doors were set wide open, and outside the freemen who followed the chiefs sat in silence to see what they might and hear.

Then swore Havelok to keep the ancient laws and customs, and to do even-handed justice to all men, and to be bound by all else that a good king should hold by.  Sometimes these oaths are not kept as well as they might be, but I was certain that here was one who would keep them.

Thereafter Sigurd brought forth a crown that he had had made hastily by his craftsmen from two gold arm rings, and they set it on Havelok’s head, and hailed him as king indeed; and one by one the chiefs came and swore all fealty to him, beginning with Sigurd, and ending with a boy of some seventeen winters, who looked at the king he bent before as though he was Thor himself.

Then they would have had Havelok forth to the people at once; but he bade them hearken for a moment, and said, taking Goldberga by the hand, “Were it not for this my wife, I do not think that I had been here today, and without her I am nothing.  Now I am king by your word, and I think that I might bid you take her as queen.  But I had rather that she was made queen by your word also, that whither I live or fall in the strife that is to come, you may fight for her.”

At that there was a murmur of praise, and all agreed that she should be crowned at once.  So Havelok set the crown on her head while the chiefs in one voice swore to uphold her through good and ill, as though she were Havelok himself.