"Yet I am glad it was no earlier, for it will all be over before he can prevent it." "Ulf once dead," said the first, "Sigurd cannot help being the king, however much he may dislike it." "Nay, he dislikes not being king, but he is so foolishly tender about his brother." The other laughed.
"There are others, I trust, will not be foolishly tender with his brother this night.

At what hour is the deed to be done ?" "By midnight." At this Sigurd, who had heard it all, could not refrain from starting where he stood.
The men heard him in an instant, and finding themselves thus discovered, rushed with one accord on the hero.
Before Sigurd could draw his sword or offer any resistance he was overpowered and held fast by his assailants who, for fear he should cry aloud and alarm the town, threw a cloak over his head and led him off quickly to the castle.
Here, when the guards came out and inquired what it all meant, "This man," they said, "we know to be an enemy of the king's, who has come disguised to this town to do him some harm; keep him fast till the morning." The guard, without so much as uncovering Sigurd's face, hurried him through the gate, and brought him to a dark dungeon, into which they thrust him, turning the key twice upon him.
Then Sigurd cast himself on the floor in despair.
To find himself thus confined, after all the fatigues he had suffered and all the perils he had escaped, was fearful indeed, the more so because he knew his brother was close at hand, and yet must die with no brotherly hand to help him.

For himself he cared nought.

The men who had cast him there called themselves his friends, and, as he knew, desired only to keep him fast, believing him to be a stranger who might disclose their plot.

When all was over and Ulf dead, they would release him and perchance discover who he was.
Sigurd wished he might die before the morning.
But presently, as he lay, he heard a sound of feet on the pavement without approaching his dungeon.
The door slowly opened and a monk stood before him.
The hope that dawned in Sigurd's breast as the door opened faded again as a gruff voice without said-- "Do thy work quickly, father.