Her judges could not stand against her.  Rolf swore that she would have been unworthy the name of shield-maiden had she acted otherwise.  And Sigurd pressed her hand with brotherly tenderness.

“You should know that I am not blaming you in earnest, my foster-sister, because I grumble a little when I cannot see my way out of the tangle.”  He bent over Kark to make sure that he was really as unconscious as he seemed; then he lowered his voice nervously.  “What makes it a great mishap is that your presence doubles Alwin’s risk, and because one can never be altogether sure to what lengths Eric’s son will go,—­even with one whom he loves as well as he loves you.  If I could find some good way in which to break the news to him before he sees you,—­”

Helga sprang out of her niche, and stood, straight and rigid, before them.  “You shall not endanger yourself to shield me.  You will feel it enough for what you have already done.  The first burst of his anger I will bear myself, as is my right.”

Before they had even guessed her intention, she slipped past them, leaped lightly over Kark’s motionless body, and delivered herself into the light of the torches.  In another instant, a roar of amazement and delight had gone up from the benches; and the men were dropping their games and knocking over their goblets to crowd around her.

“She has got out of her wits,” Rolf said, wonderingly.

“He will kill her,” Sigurd answered, between his teeth.  “For half as much cause, Olaf Trygvasson struck a queen in the face.”

They followed her aft, like men walking in a dream; but between the rings of broad shoulders they soon lost sight of her.  All they could see was the Norman’s dark face, as he stepped upon a bench and silently watched the approaching apparition.

“The Troll take him!  If he cannot keep that look out of his eyes, why does he not shut them?” Sigurd muttered, irritably.

Perhaps it was that look which Helga encountered, as she made the last step that brought her face to face with the chief.  At that moment, a great change came over her.  When the guardsman pushed back to the extreme limits of his chair to regard her in a sort of incredulous horror, she did not fall at his feet as everyone expected her to, and as she herself had thought to do.  Instead, she flung up her head with a spirit that sent the long locks flying.  Even when anger began to distort his face,—­anger headlong and terrible as Eric’s,—­her glance crossed his like a sword-blade.

“You need not look at me like that, kinsman,” she said, fiercely.  “It is your own fault for giving me into the power of a mean-minded brute,—­you who brought me up to be a free Norse shield-maiden!”

If the planks of the deck had risen against them, the men could not have looked at each other more aghast.  Her boldness seemed to paralyze even Leif.  Or was it the grain of truth in the reproach that stayed him?  He let moment after moment pass without replying.  He sat plainly struggling to hold back his fury, gripping his chair-arms until the knuckles on his fists gleamed white.