Forgetting that no weapon hung there now, Alwin’s hand flew to his side.  Young Haraldsson, catching only the gesture, stayed him peremptorily.

“Stand back,—­they were aimed at me!  It is my quarrel.”  He threw himself from his saddle, and his blade flashed forth like a sunbeam.

Evidently there was no need of explanations between the two.  The instant they met, that instant their swords crossed; and from the first clash, the blades darted back and forth and up and down like governed lightnings.  Alwin threw a quieting arm around the neck of the startled horse, and settled himself to watch.

Before many minutes, he forgot that he had been on the point of quarrelling with Sigurd Haraldsson.  Anything more deft or graceful than the swiftness and ease with which the young noble handled his weapon he had never imagined.  Admiration crowded out every other feeling.

“I hope that he will win!” he muttered presently.  “By St. George, I hope that he will win!” and his soothing pats on the horse’s neck became frantic slaps in his excitement.

The archer was not a bad fighter, and just now he was a desperate fighter.  Round and round went the two.  A dozen times they shifted their ground; a dozen times they changed their modes of attack and defence.  At last, Sigurd’s weapon itself began to change from one hand to the other.  Without abating a particle of his swiftness, in the hottest of the fray he made a feint with his left.  Before the other could recover from parrying it, the weapon leaped back to his right, darted like a hissing snake at the opening, and pierced the archer’s shoulder.

He fell, snarling, and lay with Sigurd’s point pricking his throat and Sigurd’s foot pressing his breast.

“I think you understand now that you will not stand over my scalp,” young Haraldsson said sternly.  “Now you have got what you deserved.  You managed to get me banished, and you shot three arrows at me to kill me; and all because of what?  Because in last fall’s games I shot better than you!  It was in my mind that if ever I caught you I would drive a knife through you.”

He kicked him contemptuously as he took his foot away.

“Sneaking son of a wolf,” he finished, “I despise myself that I cannot find it in my heart to do it, now that you are at my mercy; but I have not been wont to do such things, and you are not worth beginning on.  Crawl on your miserable way.”

While the archer staggered off, clutching his shoulder, Sigurd came back to his horse, wiping his sword composedly.  “It was obliging of you to stay and hold High-flyer,” he said, as he mounted.  “If he had been frightened away, I should have been greatly hindered, for I have many miles before me.”

That brought them suddenly back to their first topic; but now Alwin handled it with perfect courtesy.

“Let me urge you again to turn back with me.  It is not easy for me to answer your questions, for this morning is the first time I have seen the maiden; but she is awaiting you at the cross-roads with the old man she calls Tyrker, and—­”