“It was the King who sent for you, that he might know whether I had spoken the truth concerning my disguise—” she said when at last her voice returned. “Now, by coming, you have helped me against his anger,—let that settle all debt between us. I thank you much and—and I bid you farewell.” Again Elfgiva’s schooling came to her mind and she swayed before him in a courtesy. She even bent her lips into a little smile so that he should not be sorry for her and stay to tell her so. She did not know that her cheeks were as white as her kerchief, that her eyes were dark wells of unshed tears. She knew only that at last he was bowing, he was turning, in a moment more he would be gone—But just short of that point he stopped, and all motion around her appeared to stop, as a noise down the corridor blotted out every sound in the garden,—the noise of a great body of people rousing the echoes with jubilant shouting.
“The King! The King!” could be heard again and again, and after it a burst of deafening cheers that drowned the rest.
Elfgiva dropped the gilded quoits to wring her hands. “Is it the English, my lord?” she implored of Eric of Norway. “Is it the English attacking us? Shall we be killed?”
“Think you that Danes cheer like that when they are expecting death?” the Norseman reassured her with a hearty laugh. “It is good news,—great news since the whole mob has thought it safe to bring it. Hark! Can you hear what it is that they add after the King’s name?”
Listening, everyone stood motionless as the babel came nearer with a swiftness which spoke much for the speed of the shouters. Only Randalin’s little red shoe began to tap the earth impatiently. What did it matter what they said?
“Hail to Canute of Denmark!” “Hail to the King of the Danes and—” Again cheers drowned the rest.
The pages, who had sped at the first alarm like a covey of gay birds, came panting back, tumbling over one another in their efforts to impart the news.
“A messenger!” “A messenger from Oxford—” “From Edric—” “Edmund is—” “—Edmund—” “A messenger!” one cancelled another in the wild excitement.
Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and in the lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time unbroken: “Honor to the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the Angles!”