"Ho-ho! Rome-King!" laughed the giantess, and tossed back her head so suddenly, that the waves of her red hair shook.
The falcon flew screaming up, and circled round her head three times. It then quietly returned to her shoulder.
"The man has not yet been born," continued the Amazon, "who could conquer Haralda's heart and hand. Harald alone, my brother, can bend my arm, and spring and hurl his spear farther than I."
"Patience, my little sister! I trust that soon a man of marrow will master thy coy maidenhood. This King here, although he looks as mild as Baldur, yet resembles Sigurd, the vanquisher of Fafner. You shall vie with each other in hurling the spear."
Haralda cast a long look at the Gothic King, blushed, and pressed a kiss upon her falcon's smooth head.
But Totila said:
"Evil befell, as the singers tell us, when Sigurd strove with the Amazon. Rather let woman greet woman in peace. Give thy hand, Haralda, to my bride."
And he signed to Valeria, to whom Duke Guntharis had very imperfectly translated what was said.
Valeria rose with graceful dignity. She wore a long white Roman-Grecian garment, which hung in soft folds, and was confined at the waist by a golden girdle, and upon the shoulder with a cameo brooch. Bound her nobly-shaped head was bound a branch of laurel, which Totila had taken from Adalgoth's wreath to fasten into her black hair. Her beauty, and the rhythm of her movements and the folds of her garments, seemed to float around her like music. She silently held out her hand to her northern sister.
Haralda had cast a sharp and not very friendly look upon the Roman girl; but admiration soon dispelled the angry surprise which had overspread her countenance, and she said: