"Girl, ye are no Saxon maiden! ye are a Viking's daughter! I claim ye for the old race that has swept every sea, and made the Viking name a terror to all lands. I will not have ye despise the fierce spirit of your race that lives in ye! Listen. I know a Viking of the old stock, a true descendant of our heroes whose mighty deeds our Sagas tell. He hath a passion for ye deep and fierce, and pure as a Viking's love should be. 'Tis Sigurd of Lakesland, who was here but yestere'en. Let me plight your troth with him, and there shall spring a progeny like unto our forefathers, who will sweep the infamous Norman brood into the sea, and make the cowardly Saxon cower at the feet of the Norseman, as in the days gone by."
"Ye speak, priest, as though a maiden's heart were like a willow bush, to veer about as any idle wind may blow, or so gross a thing that it may be huckstered for a consideration, or be cast as a mere makeweight into the scale of policy. Never dream, priest, that this is a possible remedy; for I have nothing to offer Sigurd or any other. If ye cannot tell me that I shall be Oswald's bride, then I will be wedded to my people, and I will serve my country till death comes to free me."
"A curse on the evil times I have lived to see, girl!" said the priest savagely. "This simpering sentiment is not like the love of a Viking maiden at all! The sturdiest and fiercest warrior was wont to be the choice of our maidens in the old days. What charm would ye have? There is but one charm will serve the Viking cause in love or war. It never failed them, in the past, and will not fail them now if 'tis wielded fearlessly."
"What is this spell—this charm ye speak of? Tell it me at once!" said Ethel eagerly.
The priest slowly withdrew from his bosom a bright-bladed dagger, at sight of which Ethel shuddered and drew back.
The priest scowled, and said angrily, "If ye shrink at this ye are not fit to be a Viking's daughter. This will serve you if ye are resolute, for 'tis easy to get an audience of this Norman that hath bewitched Oswald, and then it were easy to plunge this dagger into her heart; and what then were thy hated rival? Take the blade in thy hand, nor shrink from it; the touch of steel will fire thy heart, and purge away the accursed leaven of effeminacy which is creeping over our Viking race. There is a magic in the touch of cold steel; my fingers tingle as I feel it. It has served the Viking's cause as nothing else could do for a thousand years."
As he spoke he pressed the fearsome weapon into her unwilling hand.
"But how then, priest, when I have taken the life of this innocent lady? Will that bring back the heart of Oswald? Nay, he will loathe me then, and I shall be as a 'daughter of perdition' unto him."
"Idle scruples, daughter!" said the priest, testy and irritable. "Who shall tell him it was your hand did this deed? Be resolute, and fear not; the Vikings' gods will help ye if ye be bold."
"But after I have done this deed, priest, and if Oswald should never know it was I that did this foul, this desperate deed, I can never rid me of the loathsome memory, nor the clinging horror, of blood-guiltiness. What after that? when self-respect, womanhood—nay, when the last shred of my humanity is gone—what would remain that were worth the having? What should I be, and how could I look to mate with his upright and chivalrous nature? What daily horror would be mine! for each look of his unsuspecting eye would damn me! Nay, priest, take back this dagger, for such means as these can never help me. My innocence is my heaven, and I will keep it while I may; for when this is lost, then all is lost. I thought ye might have gentler means."