"Has he instructed you in this religion he professes? Know you
what gods he worships?"

Osla opened her eyes in perplexed surprise; she hardly felt
herself equal to the task of converting this pagan, and yet it
were a pity not to try. So she told him, with a woman's
enthusiastic inaccuracy, of this new creed of love, then being so
strikingly illustrated in troubled, warlike Christian Europe.

"And what of the gods I and my ancestors have worshipped for so
long? What place have they in the Valhalla of the white Christ?"

"There are no other gods."

"No Odin, no Thor, no Freya of the fair seasons, no Valhalla for
the souls of the brave? Nay, Osla, leave me my gods, and I will
leave you yours. Mine is the religion of my kinsmen, of my father,
of my ancestors. And," he continued, "would you say that Christian
men are better than worshippers of Odin? Are they braver, are
their swords keener, are they more faithful to their friends?"

"We want not keen swords. Warfare is your only thought. You live
but to pillage and to fight. Have you known what it is to lose
home and brothers all in one battle? Have you fled from a smoking
roof-tree? Have you had mercy refused you? Have you had wife or
child borne away to slavery? That is your creed--tell me, is it
not?"

"I have thought of these things, Osla," said Estein gravely. "I
have thought of them at night when the stars shone and the wind