"I have. If I had meant to use it, it would have been used first on you.
Take it, if you like."
She hurried up to Hereward, who lay sleeping quietly on the altar-steps;
knelt by him, wrung his hands, called him her champion, her deliverer.
"I am not well awake yet," said he, coldly, "and don't know whether this
may not be a dream, as more that I have seen and heard seems to be."
"It is no dream. I am true. I was always true to you. Have I not put
myself in your power? Am I not come here to deliver you, my deliverer?"
"The tears which you shed over your ogre's corpse seem to have dried
quickly enough."
"Cruel! What else could I do? You heard him accuse me to those ruffians of
having stolen his sword. My life, my father's life, were not safe a
moment, had I not dissembled, and done the thing I loathed. Ah!" she went
on, bitterly, "you men, who rule the world and us by cruel steel, you
forget that we poor women have but one weapon left wherewith to hold our
own, and that is cunning; and are driven by you day after day to tell the
lie which we detest."
"Then you really stole his sword?"
"And hid it here, for your sake!" and she drew the weapon from behind the
altar.
"Take it. It is yours now. It is magical. Whoever smites with it, need
never smite again.
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