A meal at midday was not a Brattahlid custom; but when the noon-hour came, there was a lull in the activity while Kark carried around bread and meat and ale. Combining prudence with a saving of labor, the thrall made no attempt to approach the brooding stranger; nor did the latter give any sign of noticing the slight. But the chief's keen eyes saw it, as they saw everything.

From his seat under the maple-tree, he called out with the voice of authority: "Hardy bear-fighters are not made by abstaining from food; nor are wits sharpened by sulking. I invite the Norman to sit with me, while he drinks his ale and tells me what lies heavy on his mind."

It was with more embarrassment than gratification that Robert Sans-Peur responded to this invitation.

"It may well be that my head is drowsy because I have had too much ale," he made excuse, as he took his seat.

Over the chunk of bread he was raising to his mouth, the chief regarded his guest critically.

"There is an old saying," he observed, "that when it happens to a man that his head is sleepy in the day-time, it is because his mind is not in his body but wanders out in the world in another shape. In what land, and in what form, do the Norman's thoughts travel?"

After a moment, Robert the Fearless rose to his feet and bowed low. "They have returned to rest contentedly in an unnamed land," he answered; "and they wear the shape of thanks to Leif Ericsson for his many favors. I drink to the Lucky One's health, and to his undying fame! Skoal!"

As he set down his horn after the toast, the Norman's glance happened to encounter a glance from the shield-maiden, who was passing. Taking another horn from the thrall, he bowed again, with proverbial French gallantry; then quaffed off the second measure of ale to the honor of Helga the Fair.

Leif turned in time to catch a rather unusual expression on the maiden's face, though her courtesy was a model of formality. He held out his hand peremptorily.

"Come hither, kinswoman, and tell me how matters go with you," he commanded. "It is to be hoped that Tyrker has not lost you out of his mind, as I have done during these last weeks. How are you entertaining yourself this morning, while he is absent?"

Helga sped a guilty thought to a certain green nook on the river bluff; and winged heavenward a prayer of thanks that she had put off until afternoon her daily pilgrimage to the beloved shrine.

She answered readily, "I have entertained myself very poorly so far, kinsman, for I have been doing such woman's-work as Thorhild commends. I have been in your sleeping-house, sewing upon the skin curtains that are to make the fourth wall of my chamber."

Leif glanced at the Norman with a dry smile. "Chamber!" he commented. "Learn from this, Robert of Normandy, how a Norse maiden regards a stall! Yet, whatever hostile thing attacks us, a Norman lady in her bower would be no safer. Tyrker's sleeping-place, and mine and Valbrand's, lie between the house-door and the chamber of Helga, Gilli's daughter." He freed the girl's hand, though he still held her with his eyes. "Whither do you betake yourself now?" he demanded. "Long rambles are unsafe in an unknown country."

In her perfect composure, Helga even laughed; a silvery peal that sent a thrill of pleasure through the brooding old trees.

"By my knife, kinsman, you take your responsibility heavily, now that you have remembered it at all!" she retorted. "I do not go far; only a little way up the river, where grow the rushes of which I wish to make baskets."

The chief released her then; and soon she disappeared among the trees.

One by one, the men finished their meal and drifted back to their various employments. The hammers began again their merry tattoo; and the wrangling voices of dice-throwers replaced the shouts of the bathers. Except for these, however, the place was still. The sun shone hotly, and the trees appeared to nap in the drowsy air.

Perhaps because he preferred asking questions to answering them, Robert Sans-Peur began an earnest conversation, concerning the harvest, the traps, and the fishing. But as the hour grew, the gaps between his inquiries stretched wider. As the tree-heads ceased even their nodding and hung motionless, the chief's answers became briefer and slower. At last the moment arrived when no response at all was forthcoming. Glancing up, the Norman found his host tilted back against the maple trunk in placid slumber.

The young man let something like a sigh of relief escape him. Still, watching the sleeping face warily, he tried the effect of another question. Oblivion. He rose to his feet with a daring flourish of yawns and stretching, and awaited the result of that test. The deep breathing never faltered.

Then Alwin the Lover hesitated no longer. Quietly and directly, as one who treads a familiar path, he walked around the corner of the last hut and disappeared among the trees.

Many feet had worn a distinct trail through the woods to the edge of the bluff, and down the steep to the water; but only two pair of feet had ever turned aside, midway the descent, and found the path to Eden. Like a rosy curtain, a tall sumach bush hid the trail's beginning; the overhanging bluffs concealed it from above; the tangle of shrubs and vines which covered the bank from the water's edge screened it from below. Hardly more than a rabbit track, a narrow shelf against the wall of the steep, it ran along for a dozen yards to stop where a ledge of moss-covered rock thrust itself from the soil.

When Alwin pushed aside the leafy sprays, Helga stood awaiting him with outstretched hands. "You have been long in coming, comrade. I dare not hope that it is because Leif delayed you with some new friendliness?"

Her lover shook his head, as he bent to kiss her hands.

"Do not hope anything, sweetheart," he said, wearily. "That is the one way not to be disappointed." He threw himself down on the rock at her feet, unaware that her smooth brows had suddenly drawn themselves into a troubled frown.

She said with grave slowness, "I do not like to hear you speak like that. You are foremost among men in courage, yet to hear you now, one would almost imagine you to be faint-hearted."

Alwin's mouth bent into a bitter smile, as his eyes stared away at the river. "Courage?" he repeated, half to himself. "Yes, I have that. Once I thought it so precious a thing that I could stake honor and life upon it, and win on the turn of the wheel. But I know now what it is worth. Courage, the boldness of the devil himself, who of the North but has that? It is cheaper than the dirt of the road. If I have not been a coward, at least I have been a fool."

All at once, Helga shook out her flying locks like so many golden war banners, and turned to face him resolutely. "You shall not speak, nor think like that," she said; "for I see now that it is not good sense. Before, though my heart told me you were wrong, I did not understand why; but now I have turned it over in my mind until I see clearly. The failure of your first attempt to win Leif's favor is a thing by itself; at least it does not prove that you have not yet many good chances. I will not deny that we may have expected too many opportunities for valiant deeds, yet are there no other ways in which to serve? Was it by a feat of arms that you won your first honor with the chief? It was nothing more heroic than the ability to read runes which, in five days, got you more favor than Rolf Erlingsson's strength had gained him in five years. Are your accomplishments so limited to your weapons that when you cannot use your sword you must lie idle? Many little services will count as much as one big one, when the time of reckoning comes. Shake the sleep-thorn out of your ear, my comrade, and be your brave strong-minded self again. Without courage, never would Robert Sans-Peur have come to Greenland, nor Helga, Gilli's daughter, have followed him to Norway. Despise it not, but mate it with your good sense, and the two shall yet draw us to victory."

It was a long time before Alwin answered. The river splashed and murmured below; birds rustled in the bushes around them, or dived into the green depths with a soft whir of wings. A rabbit paused to look at them, and two squirrels quarrelled over a nut, within reach of their hands,—so still were they. But when at last Alwin raised his eyes to hers, their gaze reassured her.

"The sleep-thorn is out, sweetheart," he said, slowly. "Now is the whole of my folly clear to me for the first time. Never again shall you have cause to shame my manhood with such words."

"Shame! Shame you, who are the best and bravest in the world!" she cried, passionately, and threw herself on her knees by his side, entreating.

But he silenced her lips with kisses, and put her gently back upon the rock.

"Do not let us speak further of it, dear one. I have thought so much and done so little. After this you shall see how I will bear myself... But let us forget it now, and rest awhile. Let us forget everything in the world except that we are together. Lay your hand in mine and turn your face where I can look into it; and so shall we be sure of this happiness, whatever lies beyond."

A vague fear laid its icy finger, for an instant, on Helga's brave heart; but she shook it off fiercely. Locking her hand fast in her comrade's, she let all the love of her soul well up and shine from her beautiful eyes. So they sat, hand in hand, while the hours slipped by and the shadows lengthened about them, and the light on the river grew red.

With the sunset, came the sound of distant voices. Helga started up with a finger on her lips.

"It is the exploring party, returning! It is possible that one of them might blunder in here. Do you think we can climb the bluff before they turn the bend and see us?"

The voices were becoming very distinct now. Alwin shook his head.

"I think it better to remain where we are. Sigurd knows that we are likely to be here. He will turn them aside, if need be. See; yonder is his blue cloak now, at the—"

He broke off and slowly rose to his feet, a look upon his face that made Helga whirl instinctively and glance over her shoulder. She did not turn back again, but sat as though frozen in the act; for behind the sumach bush Leif stood, watching them.

How long he had been there they had no idea, but his eyes were full upon them; and they realized that at last he knew truly for whom it was that Helga, Gilli's daughter, had fled from home. His lips were drawn into a straight line, and his brows into a black frown.

The voices came nearer and nearer,—until Sigurd's blue cloak fluttered at the very foot of the trail. When he saw the chief's scarlet mantle mingling with the scarlet of the sumach leaves, the jarl's son gave a great leap forward. It was no longer than the drawing of a breath, however, before he recovered himself.

His clear voice rose like a bugle call, "Diable! foster-father! I have just made a very different discovery from the one I promised you,—Tyrker has been left behind."

The chief was down the bank in three long leaps, shooting a volley of fierce questions. Each member of the party instantly raised his voice to defend himself and blame his neighbor. The remainder of the camp, brought to the spot by the noise, rent the air with upbraiding and alarms. When the shield-maiden suddenly sprang from nowhere and stood in their midst, the men did not even notice her; nor did the appearance of the Norman attract more attention. As an accident, it was incredibly fortunate; as a diversion, it was a master-stroke.

Yet it did not take the chief long to quell the up-roar, when at last he had made up his mind what course to pursue. Seizing a shield from a man at his side, he hammered upon it with his sword until every other sound was drowned in the clangor.

"Silence!" he shouted. "Silence, fools! Would you save him by deafening each other? We must reach him before wild beasts do: he would be as a child in their clutches. Ten of you who are fresh-footed, get weapons and follow me. The least crazy of you who accompanied him, shall guide us back."

Only as he was turning away and ran bodily into him, did he appear to remember the Norman's existence. His eyes gave out an ominous flash.

"You also follow," he commanded.

As the little column moved over the hills in the fading light, Helga looked after them, half dazed.

"What is the meaning of that?" she murmured to the jarl's son at her side. "It is certain that Leif recognized him; yet he chooses him to accompany them. I do not understand it."

Nothing could have been sturdier than Sigurd's manner; she did not think to look at his face.

"That may easily be," he returned. "Since it angered the chief to find you two together, it would be no more than natural that he should wish to make sure of your separation."

Helga did not appear to hear him. She stood transfixed with the horror of a sudden conviction.

"It is to kill him!" she gasped. "That is why he has taken him away, that he may kill him quietly and without interference. I will go after them... By running, I can catch up—let me go, Sigurd!"

The fact that his foreboding was quite as black as hers did not prevent Sigurd from tightening his grasp, almost to roughness.

He said sternly, "Be still. You have done harm enough by such crazy actions. If by any chance he is not discovered, you would be certain to betray him. You can do nothing but harm in any case."

As he felt her yield to his grasp, he added, less harshly, "More likely than not, nothing of any importance will happen; if Tyrker is found unharmed, Leif's joy will be too great to allow him to injure anyone, whatever his offence."

She interrupted him with a low cry of anguish. "But if Tyrker is not found, Sigurd! If Tyrker is not found, Leif will vent his rage upon the nearest excuse. A Norseman in grief is like a bear with a wound: it matters not whom he bites."

Burying her face in her hands, she sank upon the ground and rocked herself back and forth. Out from the bower of long hair that streamed over her, came pitiful moans.

"He will slay him and leave him out there in the darkness... I shall not be by to raise his head and weep over him, as I did before .... Oh, thou God, if there is help in Thee—! I shall not be with him... Leif will slay him and leave him out in the darkness, alone..."

Sigurd's face grew white as he watched her, and he clenched his hands so that the nails sank deep in the flesh.

"There is nothing to do but to wait," he said, briefly. "If Tyrker is found, all will be well." He paced to and fro before her, his ear set toward the river.

Over in front of the cook-house, Kark's fires began to twinkle out like altars of good cheer. Like votaries hurrying to worship at them, the hungry men went and threw themselves on the grass in a circle; with dice and stories and jests they whiled away the time pleasantly enough.

For the pair in the shadow, the moments dragged on lead-shod feet. Time after time, Sigurd thought he heard the sounds he longed to hear, and started toward the river,—only to come slowly back, tricked. An owl began to call in the tree above them; and ever after, Helga connected that sound with death and despair, and shuddered at it.

When at last the distant hum of voices crept upon them, they would not believe it; but sat with eyes glued to the ground, though their ears were strained. But when one of the approaching voices broke into a rollicking drinking-song, which was caught up by the group around the fire and tossed joyously back and forth, there could no longer be any doubt of the matter.

Sigurd leaped up and pulled his companion to her feet, with a cheer. "They would not sing like that if they bore heavy tidings," he assured her. "Do not spoil matters now by a lack of caution. Stay here while I run forward to meet them."

Then, for the first time since the failing of the blow, Helga recalled with a flush of shame that she was a dauntless shield-maiden; and she took hold of her composure with both hands.

Singing and shouting, the rescuers came out of the woods at last and into the circle of firelight. On the shoulders of the two leaders sat Tyrker, his little eyes dancing with excitement, his thin voice squeaking comically in his attempts to pipe a German drinking-song, as he beat time with some little dark object which he was flourishing. The chief walked behind him with a face that was not only clear but almost radiant. Still further back came Robert Sans-Peur, quite un-harmed and vigorous. In the name of wonder, what had happened to them?

"It is the strangest thing that ever occurred."—"It is a miracle of God!"—"Growing as thick as crow-berries."—"Such juice will make the finest wine in the world!"—"Biorn Herjulfsson will dash out his brains with envy."—"Was ever such luck as the Lucky One's?" were the disjointed phrases that passed between them.

Waving the dark object over his head, Tyrker struggled down from his perch. "Wunderschoen! As in the Fatherland growing! And I went not much further than you,—only a step, and there—like snakes in the trees gecoiled! So solid the bunches, that them your fingers you cannot between pry. The beautiful grapes! Foster-son, for this day's work I ask you to name this country Vine-land. Such a miracle requires that. Ach, it makes of me a child again!"

He tossed the fruit into their eager hands and began all at once to wipe his eyes industriously upon the skirt of his robe. Swiftly the bunch passed from hand to hand. Each time a juicy ball found its way down a thirsty throat a great murmur of wonder and delight arose.

"There is more where this came from? Plenty, you say?" they inquired, anxiously. And on being assured that hillside after hillside was covered with bending wreaths of purple clusters, their rapture knew no bounds.

Ale was all well enough; but wine—! Not only would they live like kings through the winter, but in the spring they would take back such a treasure as would make their home-people stare even more than at the timber and the wheat.

"You need have no fear concerning Leif's temper," Sigurd whispered in Helga's ear. "This discovery makes his mission as sure of success as though it were already accomplished. No man's nose rises at timber, but two such miracles as wheat and grapes, planted without hands and growing without care,—these can be nothing less than tokens of divine favor! The Lucky One would spare his deadliest foe tonight."

"That sounds possible," Helga admitted, studying the chief's face anxiously. As she looked, Leif's gaze suddenly met hers, and she had the discomfort of seeing a recollection of their last encounter waken in his eyes. Yet they did not darken to the blackness that had lowered from them at the cliff. They took on more of an expression of quiet sarcasm. Turning where the Norman stood, a silent witness of the scene, the chief beckoned to him.

"A while ago, Robert Sans-Peur, I had it in my mind to run a sword through you," he said, dryly. "But I have since bethought myself that you are a guest on my hands; and also that it is right to take your French breeding into account. Yet, though it may easily be a Norman habit to look upon every fair woman with eyes of love, it is equally contrary to Norse custom to permit it. Give yourself no further trouble concerning my kinswoman, Robert of Normandy. Attach yourself to my person and reserve your eloquence for my ear,—and my ear only."



CHAPTER XXVII

MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

Middling wise Should every man be, Never too wise; Happiest live Those men Who know many things well. Ha'vama'l

They must have missed a great deal of enjoyment, to whom a new world meant only a new source of gold and slaves. To these men from the frozen north, the new world was an earthly paradise. A long clear day under a warm sun was alone a gift to be thankful for. To plunge unstinted hands into the hoarded wealth of ages, to be the first to hunt in a game-stocked forest and the first to cast hook in a fish-teeming river,—to have the first skimming of nature's cream-pans, as it were,—was a delight so keen that, saving war and love, they could imagine nothing to equal it. Like children upon honey, they fell upon the gift that had tumbled latest out of nature's horn of plenty, and swept through the vineyard in a devastating army. Snuffing the sweet scent of the sun-heated grapes, they ate and sang and jested as they gathered, in the most innocent carousal of their lives. Shouting and singing, they brought in their burdens at night,—litters of purple slain that bent even their stout backs. The roofs were covered with the drying fruit, which was to be doctored into raisins, and cask after cask of sour tangy wine was rolled into the provision shed beside the garnered grain.

"The King of Norway does not live better than this," they congratulated each other. "We have found the way into the provision house of the world."

Their delight knew no bounds when they found that the arrival of winter would not interfere with sport. Winter at Brattahlid meant icebergs and blizzards, weeks of unbroken twilight and days of idling within doors. Winter in this new land,—why, it was not winter at all!

"It is nothing worse than a second autumn," Helga said, wonderingly. "They have patched on a second autumn to reach till spring."

The woods continued to be full of game, and the grass on the plains remained almost unwithered. There was only enough frost in the air to make breathing it a tonic, a tingling delight. Not even a crust formed over the placid bay; and the waters of the river went leaping and dancing through the sunshine in airy defiance of the ice-king's fetters.

On the last day of December, autumn employments were still in full swing. The last rays that the setting sun sent to the bay through the leafless branches, fell upon a group of fishermen returning with a load of shining fish hanging from their spears. From the grove came the ringing music of axes, the rending shriek of a doomed tree, the crackling, crashing thunder of its fall. Down at the foot of the bluff a boat was thrusting its snout into the soft bank, that an exploring party might land after a three days' journey along the winding highway of the river.

In the bow stood the chief, and behind him were Sigurd Haraldsson and Rolf; and behind them, Robert the Norman.

With a great racket of joyous hallooing for the benefit of their camp-mates, the crew leaped ashore. While some stayed to load themselves with the skins and game stowed under the seats, the rest began to climb the trail, laughing and talking noisily.

Sigurd leaped along between Rolf and the Norman, a hand on the shoulder of each, shaking them when their sentiments were unsatisfactory.

"How long am I to wait for you to have a free half-day?" he demanded of his friend from Normandy. "It was over a week before we left that I found those bear tracks, and still am I putting off the sport that you may have a share in it. Is it Leif's intention to keep you dangling at his heels forever, like a tassel on an apron? Certainly he cannot think that there is danger of your talking love to Helga while you are fighting bears."

"Though once I would have said that wooing a shield-maiden was a very similar sport," Rolf added, pleasantly.

Whereupon Sigurd shook them both, with an energy that sent all three sprawling on their faces, to the huge amusement of those who came after.

They scrambled to their feet in front of a tall sumach bush that grew half-way up the slope. Alwin's eyes fell upon a narrow ledge-like path that showed plainly between the bare branches, and he nodded toward it with a smile.

"Missing bear-fights is certainly undesirable," he said. "But it was not long ago—and on this same bank—that I anticipated a worse fate than that."

"Nevertheless, I have never seen so much service exacted from a king's page," Sigurd growled, as he bent to brush the dirt from his knees.

But Rolf shook his head with quiet decision.

"One need never tell me that it is only to keep you from saying fine things to Helga that the chief demands your constant presence. It is because he has come to take comfort in your superior intelligence, and to value your attendance above ours. There, he is calling you now! I foretell that you will not fight bears to-morrow either." He gave the broad back a hearty slap that was at the same time a friendly shove forward.

The chief's voice had even taken on an impatient accent by the time the young squire reached his side.

"I should like much to know what is the cause of your deafness! Are you dead or moonstruck that I must shout twenty times before you answer? If your wits go sleep-walking, then may we as well give up, for I have depended upon them as upon crutches. I want you to keep it in mind for me that it is after the river's second bend to the right, but its fourth bend to the left, that the trees stand which I wish to mark. And the spring—the spring is—"

"And the spring is beyond the third turning to the right," the young man finished readily. "The chief need give himself no uneasiness. It is written on my brain as on parchment."

Leif turned from him with something like an angry sigh.

"It needs to be more than written," he said. "It needs to be carved as with knives."

On the crest of the bluff he paused suddenly to shake his fists in a passion of impotence.

"A man who has no more than a trained body is of less account than a beast!" he cried. "My brain is near bursting with the details which I have sought to remember concerning these discoveries, and yet what assurance have I that I have got even half of them correct? That I have not remembered what was of least importance, and confused this place with that, and garbled it all so that the next man who comes after me shall call me a liar and laugh at my pretensions? And even though I relate every fact as truly as the Holy Book itself, what will there be left of it by the time it has passed through a hundred sottish brains in Greenland yonder? I tell you, this stained rag of a cloak I wear is nearer to what it was first, than that tale will be after swinish mouths have chewed upon it a day. It is the curse of the old gods upon the heathen. And I fling my curse back at them, for the chains they have hung upon my free hands and the beast-dumbness with which they have gagged my man's mouth."

In an abandonment of fury, he shook both fists high over his head at the scattered star faces that were peering out of the pale sky.

Not till he had turned and stamped away over the snapping twigs, did his men come out of their trance of bewilderment.

As they resumed their climbing, Eyvind the Ice-lander observed sagely, "Never saw I any one whose speech reminded me so strongly of the hot springs we have at home. All of a sudden, without warning or cause, the words shoot up into the air, boiling hot; and it would be as much as one's life is worth to try to stop them. It is incomprehensible."

Passing amused comments, they gained the crest and vanished over it, without noticing that the Norman still stood where the chief had left him, with every appearance of being equally bereft of his senses.

With parted lips, and hands nervously opening and shutting by his side, he stood staring away into the dusk before him, until the voices of those who were coming after with the spoils fell on his ear and aroused him. Then he raised to the stars a face that was fairly convulsed with excitement, and took the rest of the climb in three wild leaps.

"It is open to my sight at last!" he muttered over and over, as he hurried through the darkness toward the lighted booths. "Heaven be thanked, it is open to my sight at last!"

As he reached the end of the largest hut and was turning the corner in eager haste, an arm reached quickly out of the shadow and touched his cloak. Instinctively his hand went to his knife; but it fell away the next instant in a very different gesture, as Helga's voice whispered in his ear:

"Alwin,—it is I! I have waited for you since the first noise of the landing. I have a—hush, you must not do that! I have need of my lips to speak with No, no! Listen; I wish to warn you—"

"And I must tell you what has just occurred." Alwin's excitement bore down her caution. "I have guessed the riddle of what my service is to be,—or, to tell it truthfully, luck has guessed it for me, owl that I am! Here has it—"

But Helga's hand fell softly over his mouth. "Dumb as well as blind shall you be, till I have finished! Already I have stayed out long enough to excite suspicion. Listen to my warning; Kark suspects that your complexion is shallow. Yesterday I overheard him put the question to Tyrker, whether or not it were possible that a paint could color a man's skin dark so that it would not wear off."

"Devil take the—"

"Hush, that is not all! I have never thought it worth while to tell you, in the few words we have had together; but now I know that the creature has suspected us ever since the day when Leif came upon us on the bluff. The day after that, Kark dared to say to me, 'Is a shield-maiden as fickle as other women, for all her steel shirt? In Greenland, Helga, Gilli's daughter, loved an Englishman.' I beat him soundly for it, yet I could not uproot the thought from his mind; and now—"

"And now I tell you that it is of no consequence what he thinks," Alwin interrupted her, eagerly. "I have to-night found out a means by which I am as certain to win favor as—"

But he could not finish. Crackling steps in the grove behind them made Helga spring away from him like a startled bird. He had only time to whisper after her, "To-night,—watch me across the fire!" before she had vanished among the shadows, like one of them.

After a moment the young man went his way around the corner of the cabin and came in through the open doorway, where his companions sat at supper.

The hall, which was also the larger of the sleeping-houses, was not an unworthy off-shoot of the splendors of Brattahlid. Here, as there, the rough walls were lined with gleaming weapons and shields that shone like suns in the ruddy glow of the fire. And in lieu of tapestries, there was a noble medley of bears' claws, fish nets, glistening birds' wings, drying hides, branching antlers, and squirrels' tails. The bunk-like beds, built against the walls, displayed a fortune in the skin covers that were spread over them; fox skins covered the benches, and wolf skins lay under foot. The chief's seat no longer boasted carven pillars or embroidered pillows, but it missed none of these when the great bear skin had been flung over the cushions of fragrant pine-needles. And if the table-service was not so fine as the gilded vessels on Eric's board, yet the fish and flesh and fowl that piled the trenchers, and the purple juice that brimmed the horns, had never been equalled in Greenland.

"Only to get such wine, the journey would be worth while," Rolf murmured to the shield-maiden, beside whom he sat, when at last the business of eating was over and the pleasure of drinking had begun. As he spoke he tilted his head back, with closed eyes and a beatific smile, and let the contents of his horn run slowly down his throat.

Even a woman might have had the sense to leave him undisturbed at such a moment; yet Helga bent forward and jogged his arm without compunction.

"Are you going to be forever swallowing?" she whispered, sharply. "Look across the fire and tell me what Alwin is doing with his hands. He has turned aside so that I cannot see."

It was with a distinct bang that the Wrestler set down his empty cup, and in a distinct snarl that his answer came over his shoulder. "Not a few men have been slain for such rudeness as that. Why should I care what the Norman is doing? Is it a time to be riding horseback or catching fish? Since there is no babbling woman at his elbow, it is likely that he is drinking."

But Helga's hand did not loosen its hold upon his arm.

"Hush!" she entreated him. "Something really is going to happen; he warned me of it. Something of great importance. You will act with no more than good will if you look and tell me what you see."

Excitement is infectious; even through his sulks Rolf caught it, and leaning forward, he peered curiously over the flames. The Norman sat in his usual place at the chief's left hand. It was evident that his thoughts were far away, for his drinking-horn stood forgotten at his elbow and he was humming absently as he worked. His fingers were busy with a long splinter and a tuft of fox-hairs, that he was pulling carefully from the rug on which he sat.

Rolf's eyes widened into positive alarm as he watched. "He has the appearance of a crazy man!" he reported. "Or it may be that he is making a charm and that is the weird song which he is mumbling. See,—he has finally drawn Leif's attention upon him!"

"He is not acting without a purpose," Helga persisted. "He told me to watch him. Look! What is he doing now?"

Still humming, and with the leisurely air of one who works to please himself alone, the Norman completed his task and held the result up critically to the light. It was nothing more nor less than a clumsy little fox-hair brush. Leaning back on the bear skin the chief continued to gaze at it curiously. But the pair across the fire suddenly turned to each other with a gasp of comprehension.

The Norman, still humming carelessly, drew his horn nearer with one hand, and with the other pushed a bowl out of his way. Then dipping his brush in the purple wine, he began to paint strange-looking runes on the fair new boards before him.

"It has come to my mind to try whether I can remember the words of that French song which we heard together in Rouen," he said lightly to Sigurd Haraldsson who sat by him. "Was it not thus that the first line ran?"

Almost with the weight of a blow, Leif's hand fell upon his shoulder.

"Runes!" he cried, in a voice that brought every man to his feet, even those who had fallen asleep over their drinking. "Runes? Is it possible that you have the accomplishment of writing them?"

His hold upon the shoulder tightened, of a sudden, to such a pressure that the young man was fain to drop his brush with a gasp of agony, and catch at the crushing hand. "You have had this power all these months that you have known of my great need? How comes it that you have never put forth a hand to help me?" he thundered.

Across the fire, Helga, Gilli's daughter, held herself down upon the bench with both hands. But though his lips were twisted with pain, the rune-writer met Leif's gaze unflinchingly.

"Help you, chief?" he repeated, wonderingly. "How was I to know that Norman writing would be of assistance to you? When did you ever tell me of your need?"

Though his gaze continued to hold the Norman for awhile, Leif's grip on his shoulder slowly relaxed. Then, gradually, his eyes also loosened their hold. Finally he burst into a loud laugh and slapped him on the back.

"By the edge of my sword, your wit is as nimble as a rabbit!" he swore. "I cannot blame you for this. At least you lost little time in coming to my support as soon as I had told my need. By the Mass, Robert Sans-Peur, you could not have brought your accomplishment to a better market! I tell you frankly that it is of more value to me than any warrior's skill in the world, and I am not too stingy to pay what it is worth."

Unclasping the gold chain from his neck, he threw it over the Norman's head.

"Take this to begin with, Robert of Normandy," he said, with grave courtesy. "And I promise you that, if your help proves to be as great as I expect, there will be little that you can ask that I shall not be glad to give."

Decked in the shining gold of his triumph, the masquerading thrall stood with bent head, a look that was almost shame-stricken stealing over his face. But it is probable that the chief feared that he meditated another attempt at hand kissing, for that brusque commander began to speak quickly and curtly of purely unsentimental matters.

"I have none of the kid-skin of which your Southern books are made. Yet will not a roll of fresh white vadmal offer a fair substitute? And certainly there is enough wine—"

There certainly was enough, and more; yet at this suggestion an indignant murmur could not be suppressed.

"Though I never dispute your wisdom in anything, that appears to me to be little better than desecration," Valbrand declared, frankly.

With an effort the Norman roused himself. "It will not be necessary," he said, absently. "I know how to make a liquid out of barks that will have a dark color and suffer no damage from water."

He did not notice the expression that flared up in Kark's eyes; nor did he hear Helga's gasp, nor feel Sigurd's foot. His gaze fell again to the floor in moody abstraction.

The chief answered briefly to the murmurs: "It is unadvisable to oppose my whim for writing in wine; who knows but I might exchange it for a fancy to write in blood? Bring hither the vadmal, thrall, and we will lose no more precious moments."

Was ever monkish work begun in more unchurch-like surroundings? Alwin wondered, a festal board for a desk and a wine-cup for an ink-horn! The brawling crew along the benches drank and sang and rattled dice in their nightly carousal; and, in a corner, Lodin wrestled with the well-grown bear-cub before a circle of cheering spectators. The firelight flickered over the trophy-laden walls, picking out now a severed paw and now a grinning skull, until the whole place seemed a ghastly shrine of savagery.

The warrior-scribe wrote with painful slowness; and more than once, in trying to catch some of Helga's chatter across the fire, he wrote such twisted sentences that it was impossible to unravel them when he came to retranslate. Yet he did write. Ploddingly, haltingly, clumsily, he still caught the fleeting thoughts as they sped, and fastened them down, in purple and white, to last so long as one thread should lie beside another. No longer need anyone torture his brain to remember whether the tallest maple-trees stood beyond the river's second bend to the left or its fourth to the right, or between the third turning to the right and the fifth to the left. The little fox-hair brush sprang upon the fact and pinioned it, a prisoner for the remainder of time.

The chief's pleasure was almost too great to be controlled. He went at the work as a starving man goes at food, and he hung over it as a drunkard hangs over his dram. Tyrker rose with considerable bustle to take his departure for the other house; and Vaibrand stamped about noisily as he renewed the torches on the walls; but the monotonous steadiness of the dictation never faltered. One by one, the men about Leif dropped off, snoring; and he heeded it no more than he did the soughing of the wind through the grove. By and by, even the fresh torches began to snore, in angry sputters; and the fire, which had long since begun to wink drowsily, shut its last red eye and lay in total oblivion.

Leif sat up reluctantly, and stretched his arms over his head with a regretful sigh. "My mind comes out of it as stubbornly as Sigmund's sword came out of the tree trunk. We will return to it the first thing in the morning. You have done me a service which I shall never forget while my mind lives in me."

Leaning back against the bear skin to stretch his arms again and yawn, he added thoughtfully, "Your accomplishments have remedied my misfortune that last winter I was obliged to kill a youth who was of great value to me."

The scribe sat thrusting his legs out before him and working the fingers of his cramped hand, in a stupor of weariness. He awoke suddenly and, through the flickering light of the one remaining torch, shot a stealthy glance at the chief's face.

After a while he said carelessly, "Obliged, chief? How came that? Could not his value outweigh his crime?"

Smothering a yawn, Leif rose to his feet and stood looking down at his follower, while he buckled his cloak around him. "Yes," he said, slowly; "yes, his value might have outweighed his crime,—but not his deceit. It was not only because he broke my strictest orders that I slew him; it was because, while pretending to submit to me, he was in truth scheming to get the better of me. And because he and his hot-headed friend, Sigurd Haraldsson, had the ambition to penetrate the state of my feelings and handle me as you handle your writing-brush there. Is it to be expected that a man would take it well to be fooled by a pair of boys?"

The Norman sat for a long time staring at a huge furry skin that hung on the wall in front of him. It shook sometimes in the draught; and when the light flickered over it, it looked like some quivering shapeless animal, crouching to spring upon him out of the shadow. After a while, he laughed harshly.

"If he was simple enough to expect that he could play with you and then survive the discovery of his trick, he deserved to die, for nothing more than his folly," he said, bitterly.

He straightened himself suddenly and drew a long breath as though to speak further. But at that moment the chief turned and left the booth.

While the Southerner stood looking after him, a sound like a smothered laugh came from the corner where Kark slept. Alwin wheeled toward it; but before he could take a step, Rolf's arm stretched out from his bunk by the high seat and caught his friend's belt in a vise.

"It is unnecessary to soil your hands with snake's blood, just now," he said, gently. "Besides serpent's fangs, the thrall has also serpent's cunning in his ugly head. He knows that Leif will not, for any reason tongue can name, injure the man who is writing down his history. Wait until the records are finished; then it will be time to act."

He pulled his comrade down on the bunk beside him, and held him there until the sleep of utter weariness had taken him into its safe-keeping.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"THINGS THAT ARE FATED"

The fir withers That stands on a fenced field; Neither bark nor foliage shelters it; Thus is a man Whom no one loves; Why should he live long? Ha'vama'l

In a chain of lengthening golden days and softening silver nights, the spring came.

The instinct which brings animals out of their dens to roam in the sunlight, awoke in the Norsemen's breasts and made them restless in the midst of plenty. The instinct which sets birds to nest-building amid the young green, turned the rovers' hearts toward their ice-bound home.

With glad applause, they hailed Leif's proclamation from under the budding maple-tree:

"Four weeks from to-day, if the season continues to be a forward one, it is likely that the pack-ice around the mouth of Eric's Fiord will be sufficiently broken to let us through. Four weeks from to-day, God willing, we will set sail for Greenland."

The camp entered upon a period of bustling activity. Carpenters fell to work on the re-furnishing of the ship, until all the quiet bay echoed with their pounding. With infinite labor, the great logs were floated down the river and hauled on board. Porters toiled to and from the shore with loads of grain-sacks and wine-kegs. The packers in the store-houses buzzed over the wealth of fruit like so many bees. Even Kark the Indolent caught the infection, and clashed his pots and kettles with joyful energy.

"A little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim his due," he sang over his work. "Only a little time more, and the death-wolf shall claim his due!"

On the morning of the last day in Vinland, Robert the Norman wrote the last word in the grotesque exploring record and laid down the brush forever.

"That ends the matter, chief," he said slowly.

They sat in the larger of the sleeping-houses, as they had sat on that December night when the work was begun. But now a flood of yellow sunlight fell through the open door, and a flowering pink bush flattened its sweet face against the window.

Leif regarded him with dull, absent eyes. "Yes, it is ended," he said, reluctantly; and was silent for so long that the young man looked up in surprise.

An odd expression of something like regret was on the chief's face. As he met his companion's glance, he laughed a short harsh laugh that had in it less of mirth than of scorn.

"It is ended," he repeated. "And though I know no better than yourself why it is that I am such a fool, yet I find myself full of sorrow because it is finished. I feel that I have lost out of my life something that was dear to me." He relapsed into another frowning silence; when he came out of it, it was only to motion toward the door. "No sense is in this," he said, savagely; "yet the mood has me, hand and foot. I am in no temper to talk of anything. To-night we will speak of your reward. Go now and spend the rest of the day as best pleases you."

He did not look up as his follower obeyed: he sat brooding over the great white roll as though it were the dead body of some one whom he had loved.

Out in the blithe spring sunshine, the men stood around in little groups, making hilarious plans for the day's sport. The preparations for the departure being completed, a day of untrammelled freedom lay before them; and what pastime is so dull that it is not given a zest and a relish by the thought that it is engaged in for the last time? In uproarious good spirits, they whetted their knives for a last hunt, and called friendly challenges across to each other. Inviting them to a wrestling bout, Rolf's voice rose loudest of all; but though much laughter and some gibing came in response, there were no acceptances.

When the Norman came out of the booth, the Wrestler ceased his proclamations and strolled to meet his friend with a welcoming smile. "Now I think Leif has behaved well," he said, heartily, "to remember that the last day in such a place as Vinland the Good is far too precious to be wasted on monkish tasks. Sigurd will get angry with himself that he did not wait longer for your coming."

A shade of disappointment fell over the Norman's face.

"Where has Sigurd gone?" he asked. "He swam out to an island in the bay where he has a favorite fishing-place he cannot bear to leave without another visit."

"And Helga? Where is she?"

The Wrestler looked at him in surprise. "She has gone into the woods somewhere, with Tyrker; but surely you would not be so mad as to accost her, even were she before you."

Alwin answered with an odd smile. "A man who is about to die will do many things that would be madness in a man who has life before him," he said. His eyes gazed into his friend's eyes with sombre meaning. "I finished the records this morning."

"You finished the records this morning?" Rolf repeated incredulously.

A note of impatience sharpened the other's voice. "I fail to understand what there is in that which surprises you. Certainly you must have heard Leif say, last night, that a hundred words more would end the work. And it was your own judgment that Kark would wait no longer than its completion—"

Rolf struck the tree they leaned against, with sudden vehemence. "The snake!" he cried. "That, then, is why he showed his fangs at me this morning in such a jeering smile. Yet, how could I believe that a man of your wit would allow such a thing to come to pass? With a mouthful of words you could have persuaded Leif that there was a host of things which he had forgotten. You could have prolonged the task—"

Alwin shook his head with stern though quiet decision.

"No, I have had enough of lying," he said. "Not for my life, nor for Helga's love, will I carry this deceit further. Such a smothering fog has it become around me, that I can neither see nor breathe through its choking folds... But let us leave off this talk. Since it is likely that my limbs will have a long rest after to-night, let us spend to-day roving about in search of what sport we can find. If I may not pass my last day with the man and woman that I hold dearest, still you are next in my love; you will accompany me, will you not?"

"Wherever you choose," Rolf assented.

They set forth as silently as on that spring morning, two years before, when they had set out from the Norwegian camp to witness Thorgrim Svensson's horse-fight. Now, as then, the air was golden with spring sunshine, and the whole world seemed a-throb with the pure joy of living. There was gladness in the chirp of the birds, and content in the drone of the insects; and all the squirrels in the place seemed to be gadding on joyful errands, for one could not turn a corner that a group of them did not scatter from before his feet. So common a thing as a dewdrop caught in a cobweb became more beautiful than jewel-spangled lace. The rustling of the quail in the brush, even the glimpse of a coiled snake basking on a sunny spot of earth, was fraught with interest because it spoke of life, glad and fearless and free.

They visited the nook on the bluff, screened once more in fragrant, rustling greenness; then descended to the river and walked along its bank, mile after mile. Here and there, they turned aside and threaded their way through the thicket to take a last look at the scene of some fondly recollected hunt, or to inspect some of the traps which they remembered to be there. But when in one snare they found a wretched little rabbit, still alive but frantic with terror, Alwin laid a detaining hand on Rolf's knife.

"Let him go," he said, shortly. "You have no need of him, and his life is all he has. Let him keep it,—for my sake."

He did not stay to watch the white dot of a tall go bobbing away over the ferns. He hurried on rather shamefaced; and when Rolf overtook him, they walked another mile without speaking.

Along in the middle of the forenoon they reached a point on the river where the banks no longer rose in bluffs but lay in grassy slopes, fringed with drooping trees. The sun was hot overhead, and their clothes were heavy upon their backs. Rolf suggested that they stop long enough for a swim.

"That will do as well as anything," Alwin assented. But when the delicious coolness of the water had closed about him, and he felt its velvet softness on his dusty skin, he decided that it was the best thing they could have done. The lounge upon the grassy bank, while they dried themselves in the sun, was dreamily pleasant. Even after he had gathered sufficient energy to get into his clothes again, Alwin lingered lazily, waiting for his companion to make the first move toward departure.

"This is a restful spot," he said, gazing up at the sky through the network of interlacing branches. "It gives one the feeling that it is so far away that no human foot has ever trod it before, and that none will ever come again when we have left."

From the ant-hill which he was idly spearing with grass-blades, Rolf looked up to smile. "Then your feelings are not to be trusted, comrade," he said; "for there are few spots on the river which our men have more frequented. Even that lazy hound of a thrall comes here almost daily to look at the quail-traps in yonder thicket, that being the one food which he likes well enough to make an exertion for. Would that he would visit them to-day!"

Alwin did not seem to hear him. His eyes were still intent on the swaying tree-tops. "It is a fair land to be alive in," he said, dreamily; "yet, I cannot help wondering how it will be to be dead here. Does it not seem to you that if my spirit comes out of its grave at night and finds none but wolves and bears to call to, it will experience a loneliness far worse than the pangs of death? Think of it! In this whole land, not one human spirit! To wander through the grove and the camp, and find only emptiness and silence forever!"

His body stiffened suddenly, and he flung his arms high above his head and clenched his hands in agony.

"God!" he cried. "What have I done to make me deserving of such a doom? Why could I not have died when Leif cut me down? Why could I not have been buried where human feet would pass over me, and human voices fall on my ear at night?" He flung himself over on his face and lay there motionless.

Rolf laid a hand on his comrade's shoulder, and for once his voice was honestly kind. "It is hard to know what to say to you, Alwin, my friend. You who have borne trials so manfully have a right to a better fate. There is only one thing which I can offer you: choose what man you will—so long as he be no one with whom I have sworn friendship—and I promise you that before we sail to-morrow, I will pick a quarrel with him and slay him; so that, if worst comes, your spirit shall have at least one ghost for company. I—"

He did not finish his sentence. Suddenly his touch upon Alwin's arm became an iron grip, that dragged the Saxon to his feet.

"Look!" the Wrestler gasped, as he pulled him behind the great oak in whose shelter they had been lying. "Look! Are those ghosts, or devils?"

Half-dazed, Alwin could do no more than stare along the pointing finger. On the opposite bank, some hundred yards below their point of observation, stood two long-haired, skin-clad men. Another pair had already plunged into the river and were nearly half-way across. And as the white men gazed, four more beings crashed out of the underbrush and joined their companions.

"Praise the Saint who hung leaves upon the trees as thick as curtains!" Rolf breathed in his comrade's ear. "Up with you, for your life! And make no rustling about it either."

With the agility of cats they went up the great bole, and the kind leaves closed behind them.

"Is it your opinion that they are ghosts, or devils?" Alwin asked, when each had stretched himself along a branching limb and begun a curious peering through chinks in the enveloping foliage. "It has always been in my mind that ghosts were white and devils black, while these creatures appear to be of the color of bronze."

"We shall see more of them before the game is over," Rolf returned. "The first ones are even now coming to land."

As he spoke, the two shaggy swimmers clambered out of the water, like dripping spaniels, on the very spot that the white men's bodies had pressed less than an hour before.

"I am glad that we are not now lying there without our clothes," Alwin murmured.

And Rolf ejaculated under his breath, "Now it is certain that I would rather be the only human being in the land than be in company with such as these, granting them to be human. For by Thor's hammer, they have more the appearance of dwarfs than of men!"

They were not imposing, certainly, from all that could be seen of them through the leaves. Two of their lean arms would not have made one of the Wrestler's magnificent white limbs, and the tallest among them could not have reached above Alwin's shoulders. Skins were their only coverings; and the coarseness of their bristling black locks could have been equalled only in the mane of a wild horse. Though two of the eight were furnished with bows and arrows, the rest carried only rudely-shaped stone hatchets, stuck in their belts. When they began talking together, it was in a succession of grunts and growls and guttural sounds that bore more resemblance to animal noises than to human speech.

Rolf sniffed with contempt. "Pah! Vermin! I think we could put the whole swarm to flight only by drawing our knives."

But at that moment one of the number below raised his face so that Alwin caught a glimpse of the fierce beast-mouth and the small tricky eyes in the great sockets. The Saxon lifted his eyebrows dubiously.

"I am far from certain how that attempt would end," he answered. "Though it is likely that it will have to be tried, if their intention is to settle here for the day, as it appears to be."

The men of the stone hatchets had indeed settled themselves with every look of remaining. Though one of the bowmen continued to pace the bank like a sentinel, his fellows sprawled themselves upon the turf in comfortable attitudes, carrying on their uncouth conversation with deep earnestness.

"We shall certainly have to stay here all day if we do not do something," Rolf bent from his branch to whisper to his companion. Alwin did not answer, for at that moment the harsh voices below ceased abruptly, and there ensued a hush of listening silence.

Up in the tree, Saxon gray eyes and Norse blue ones asked each other an anxious question; then answered it with decided head-shakes. It was impossible that their whispers could have carried so far, or have penetrated the growl of those voices. It must have been some noise from beyond. They strained their ears, anxiously intent.

There was no trouble in hearing it this time; it rose shrill and piercing on the drowsy noon air, a man's whistle, rapidly approaching from the direction of the Norse camp.

While Alwin listened with dilated eyes, Rolf's lips shaped just one word: "Kark!"

Almost without breathing they lay peering out between the leaves. At the first sound, the men below had leaped to their feet and grasped their weapons. Now, after a muttered word together, they drew apart noiselessly as shadows and vanished among the bushes, without so much as the snapping of a twig. Smiling innocently in the sunlight, the little nook lay as peaceful and empty as before.

Nearer and nearer came the whistler; until the crunching of his feet could be heard upon the dead leaves. Rolf pushed the hair out of his eyes, and settled himself to watch with a sigh of almost child-like pleasure.

"Here is sport! Here is a chess game where the pieces are not of ivory. I would not have missed this for a gold chain!" he told his companion. "Imagine Kark's face when they spring out upon him! So intent is his mind upon your death, that he could walk into a pit with open eyes. You can never be sufficiently thankful, Alwin of England, that the Fate which destroys your enemy, gives you also the privilege of sitting by and watching the fun."

Uncertainty was on Alwin's face, as he gazed down through the branches and saw the thrall's white tunic suddenly appear among the green bushes.

He said slowly, "I do not dispute that it looks like the hand of fate—and it is true that he is my enemy—that it is his life or mine—"

A wild yell of alarm cut him short. One by one the lean brown men were gliding out of the bushes and forming in a silent circle around the thrall. They offered him no harm; they did not even touch him; yet the apparition of their shrivelled bodies in their animal-hides, with their beast-faces looking out from under their bristling black locks, was enough to try stouter nerves than Kark's. Shriek after shriek of maddest terror rent the air.

Rolf smiled gently as he heard it. "About this time our friend below is beginning to distinguish between death-wolves and death-foxes," he observed.

Glancing at his comrade for a response to his amusement, his expression changed. "What is it your intention to do?" he demanded sharply.

Alwin had drawn himself into a sitting posture; and with one hand was tugging at the handle of his knife. He flushed shamefacedly at the question, nor did he look up as he answered it.

"I am going down to help the beast," he said. "I cannot remedy it if I am a fool. I do not deny that Kark is a cur; yet he is white, as we are; and alone. I cannot watch his murder."

He brought his knife out with a jerk; and putting it between his teeth, prepared to turn and descend.

Before he could make the move, Rolf had swung down from the limb above and landed beside him. Under his weight the boughs creaked so loudly that, but for the cover of Kark's cries, the pair must surely have been discovered.

The Wrestler spoke without drawling or gentleness: "Either you are a child or a silly fool. Do you understand that it is your enemy that they are ridding you of? What is it to you if he is chopped to pieces? You shall not stir one finger to aid him."

Forgetful of the dagger between his teeth, Alwin opened his mouth angrily. The weapon slipped from his lips and fell, a shining streak along the tree-trunk, and buried itself noiselessly in the soft sod between the roots. The next instant, a scarf from Rolf's neck was wound around the Saxon's jaws; one of the Wrestler's iron arms reached about him and gathered him up against the broad chest; one of the Wrestler's great hands closed around his wrists like fetters of iron; and a muscular leg bent itself backward over his legs like a hoop of steel. As well fight against steel or iron!

Again Rolf's voice became fairly caressing in its gentleness. "Willingly will I endure your struggles if it pleases you to employ your strength that way, comrade; yet I tell you that it would be wiser for you to spare yourself. I shall not let you go, whatever you do; whereas if you lie quietly, I will permit you to move where you can see what is going on. It looks as though it would become interesting."

It did indeed. At that moment, wearying perhaps of the howls, the brown men began to make experiments with a view toward changing the tune. Closing in upon the thrall, they commenced to feel of his clothing and his shaven head, and to pinch him tentatively between their lean fingers.

A redoubling of his outcries caused a spasm of frantic writhing in Alwin's fettered body, but Rolf's manner was as serene as before.

"See now what you are missing by your head-strongness," he reproved his captive. "It is seldom that men have the opportunity to sit, as we sit, and learn from the experience of another what would have been their fate had their fortune been equally bad. Such great luck is it that I get almost afraid for your ingratitude. It will be a great mercy if some god does not punish you for your thanklessness... By Thor! In his terror the fool has attacked them... Ah!"

From below came a sudden snarl, a sudden savage yell, the noise of struggling bodies, and then a shriek of another kind from Kark, no longer a cry of mere apprehension, but a sharp piercing scream of bodily agony.

"Let me go!" Alwin panted through his muffled jaws. "It is a nithing deed for us—to permit the death of one of our number—so. Let me go, Rolf—he is a human being. Let me go!"

A man of wood could not have been more relentless than Rolf; a man of stone could hardly have been less moved.

He argued the matter amiably: "It is true that by some mistake or other Kark wears a man's shape," he admitted; "yet it is easily seen that in every other respect he is a dog. Indeed I think there are few dogs that have less of courage and loyalty. Take the matter sensibly, comrade. If you cannot rejoice in the death of your enemy, at least consider what interest it is thus to study the habits of dwarfs. The cur who was useless during his life, will be honored by serving a good purpose in his death. Leif will think it of great importance to learn how these creatures are disposed toward white men. They have the most unusual methods of amusing themselves. Now they are doing things to his ears—" Renewed shrieks for help and mercy drowned the remainder of his words, and called forth fresh exertions from Alwin.

But when at last the Fearless One ceased, and lay spent and panting against the brawny chest, he became aware that the cries were growing fainter.

"Though they have in no way hurried the matter, I believe that he is almost dead now," Rolf comforted his captive.

Even as he spoke, the last faint cry ended in a gurgling choke,—and there was silence.

Instantly the scarf was slipped from Alwin's mouth, and the living fetters unclasped themselves from his limbs.

"Thanks to me—" Rolf was beginning.

The brief interval of silence was shattered by a cry from the sentinel on the river bank, followed either by an echo or an answering whoop from the opposite shore. Rolf stretched himself along the branch, just in time to see the men below scatter in wildest confusion and plunge headlong into the thicket.

"In the Troll's name!" he ejaculated. "When dwarfs run like that, giants must be coming!"

Alwin had clambered to his feet, and stood with his head thrust up through the leafy roof.

"It is more out of the same nest!" he gasped. "They are coming from the other bank, swarms of them ....There! Some of them have landed..."

Rolf laughed his peculiar soft laugh of quiet enjoyment. "By Thor, was there ever such a game!" he exclaimed. "I can see them now; they are after the first lot like wolves after sheep—No, Kark was the sheep! These are the hunters after the wolves. Hear them howl!"

"The last ones have climbed out of the water," Alwin bent to report. "Do they also follow?"

"As dogs follow deer. Saw I never such sport! When we can no longer hear them, it will be time for us to run a race of our own."

Alwin made no answer, and they waited in silence. Gradually distance drew soft folds over the sharp cries and muffled them, as women throw their cloaks over the sharp swords of brawlers in the hall. Once again the drone and the chirping became audible about them, and the smile of the sunshine became visible in the air. It occurred to Alwin that the peacefulness of nature was like the gentleness of the Wrestler; and there floated through his head the saying of a wrinkled old nurse of his childhood, "The English can die without flinching; the French can die with laughs on their lips; but only the Northmen can smile as they kill." When the last smothered shout was unmistakably dead, Rolf swung himself down from the bough; hung there for an instant, stretching himself comfortably and shaking the cramps out of his limbs, then let himself down to the ground; and Alwin followed.

The soft sod lay trampled and gashed by the grinding heels; and the lengthening shadows pointed dark fingers at the middle of the nook, where a shapeless thing of white and red was lying.

Rolf bent over it curiously.

"It must be that these people love killing for its own sake, to go to so much trouble over it," he commented. "Evidently it is not the excitement of fighting which they enjoy, but the pleasure of torturing. I will not be sure but what they are trolls after all."

"It was a devils' deed," Alwin said hoarsely. He looked down at the ghastly heap with a shudder of loathing. "And we are not without guilt who have permitted it. It is of no consequence what sort of a man he was; he was a human being and of our kind,—and they were fiends. You need not tell me that we could not help it," he added in fierce forestalling. "Had he been Sigurd, we would have helped it or we would both have lain like that."

Rolf shrugged his shoulders resignedly as they turned away. "Have it as you choose," he assented. "At least you cannot deny that you were helpless; let that console you. May the gallows take my body if you are not the most thankless man ever I met! Here are you rid of your enemy, and at the moment when he was most a hindrance to you, and not only do you reap the reward of the deed, but you bear no dangerous responsibility—"

He was checked by a glimpse of the face Alwin turned toward him. Pride and loathing, passion and sternness, were all mingled in its expression.

The Saxon said slowly, "Heaven's mercy on the soul that reaps the reward of this deed! Easier would it be to suffer these tortures a hundredfold increased. Profit by such a deed, Rolf Erlingsson! Do you think that I would live a life that sprang from such a death? To cleanse my hand from the stain of such a murder, though the blood had but spattered on it, I would hew it off at the wrist."



CHAPTER XXIX

THE BATTLE TO THE STRONG

He is happy Who gets for himself Praise and good-will. Ha'vama'l

It was a picture of sylvan revelry that the sunset light reddened, as it bade farewell to the Norse camp on the river bluff. On the green before the huts, two of the fair-haired were striving against other in a rousing tug-of-war. Now the hide was stretched motionless between them; now it was drawn a foot to the right, amid a volley of jeers; and now it was jerked back a foot to the left, with an answering chorus of cheers. The chief sat under the spreading maple-tree, watching the sport critically, with an occasional gesture of applause. Over the head of the bear-cub she was fondling, Helga watched it also, with unseeing eyes. Those who had come in from hunting and fishing sprawled at their ease on the turf, and shouted jovial comments over their wine-cups.

They welcomed Rolf and the Norman with a shout, when the pair appeared on the edge of the grove.

"Hail, comrades!"—"It was in our minds to give you up for lost!" "Your coming we will take as an omen that Kark will also return some time."—"Yes, return and cook us some food."—"We are becoming hollow as bubbles."

Rolf accepted their greetings with an easy flourish.

"You will become also as thin as bubbles if you wait for Kark to cook your food," he answered, lightly. "I bring the chief the bad tidings that he has lost his thrall." Pushing his companion gently aside, he walked over to where the Lucky One sat. "It will sound like an old woman's tale to you, chief," he warned him; "yet this is nothing but the truth."

While the skin-pullers abandoned their contest and dropped cross-legged upon the hide to listen, and the outlying circle picked up its drinking horns and crept closer, he related the whole experience, simply and quite truthfully, from beginning to end.

From all sides, exclamations of amazement and horror broke out when he had finished. Only the chief sat regarding him in silence, a skeptical pucker lifting the corner of his mouth.

Leif said finally, "Truth came from your mouth when you foretold that this would appear to me as strange as the tales old women tell. Until within the last month we have passed through that district almost daily; and never yet have we found aught betokening the presence of human beings. That they should thus appear to you—"

"They came like the monsters in a dream, and vanished like them," Rolf declared.

"Saving in the fact that dream monsters do not leave mangled bodies behind them," Leif reminded him; and his eyes narrowed with an unpleasant shrewdness. "Rolf Erlingsson," he advised, "confess that they are the dreams you liken them to. That Kark was no favorite with you or your friend"—he nodded toward the Norman—"was seen by everybody. Confess that it was by the sword of one of you that the thrall met his death."

For once the Wrestler's face lost its gentleness. His huge frame stiffened haughtily, as he drew himself up.

"Leif Ericsson," he returned, fiercely, "when—for love of good or fear of ill—have you ever known me to lie?"

The chief looked at him incredulously.

"You will swear to the truth of the tale?"

"I will swear to its truth by my knife, by my soul, by the crucifix you wear on your breast."

After a moment, Leif arose and extended his hand. "In that case, I would believe a statement that was twice as unlikely," he said, with honorable frankness. And a sound of applause went around as their hands clasped.

From the spot where the Norman had halted when his companion pushed forward, there came the rustle of a slight disturbance. Sigurd had caught his friend by his cloak and was pleading with him in a passionate undertone, growing more and more desperate at each resolute shake of the black head. The instant Leif resumed his seat, the Fearless One wrenched himself free and strode forward. Rolf strove to bar his way, but Robert Sans-Peur evaded him also, and took up his stand before the bench under the maple-tree.

"The Fates appear to be balancing their scales to-night, chief," he said, grimly. "For the dead man whom you believed to be alive, you see here a living man whom you thought to be dead. For the thrall that you have lost, I present to you another."

Winding his hand in his long black locks, he tore them from his head and revealed the crisp waves of his own fair hair.

From either hand there arose a buzz of amazement and incredulity mingled with grunts of approval and blunt compliments and half-muttered pleas for leniency. Only two persons neither exclaimed nor moved. Helga stood in the rigid tearless silence she had promised, her eyes pouring into her lover's eyes all the courage and loyalty and love of her brave soul. And the chief sat gazing at the rebel brought back to life, without so much as a wink of surprise, without any expression whatever upon his inscrutable face.

After a moment Alwin went on steadily, "I hid myself under this disguise because I believed that luck might grant me the chance to render you some service which should outweigh my offence. Because I was a short-sighted fool, I did not see that the better the Norman succeeded, the worse became the Saxon's deceit. My mind changed when your own lips told me what would be the fate of the man who should deceive you."

The chief's face was as impassive as stone, but he nodded slightly.

"A man of my age does not take it well to be fooled by boys," he said. "It is a poor compliment to his intelligence, when they have the opinion that they can mould him between their fingers. Though he had rendered me the greatest service in the world, the man who should deceive me should die."

Silence fell like a shroud upon the scattered groups. With a queer little smile upon her drawn lips, Helga softly unsheathed her dagger and ran her fingers along its edge. Alwln, earl's son, drew a long breath, and the muscles of his white face twitched a little; then he pulled himself together resolutely. With one hand he plucked the knife from his belt and cast it into the chief's lap; with the other, he tore his tunic open from neck to belt.

"I have asked no mercy," he said, proudly.

Leif made no motion to pick up the weapon. Instead, a glint of something like dry humor touched his keen eyes.

"No," he said, quietly. "You have asked nothing of what you should have asked. You have even failed to ask whether or not you have deceived me."

With her dagger half drawn, Helga paused to stare at him.

"You—knew—?" she gasped.

Leif smiled a dry fine smile. "I have known since the day on which Tyrker was lost," he said. "And I had suspected the truth since the night of the day upon which we sailed from Greenland."

He made a gesture toward the shield-maiden that was half mocking and half stern. "You showed little honor to my judgment, kinswoman, when you took it for granted I should not know that love alone could cause a woman to behave as you have done. Or did you think I had not heard to whom your heart had been given? That my ears only had been dead to the love tale which every servant-maid in Brattahlid rolled like honey on her tongue? Or did you imagine that I knew you so little as to think you capable of loving one man in the winter and another in the spring? Even had the Norman borne no resemblance to the Englishman, still would I—"

"But..." Helga stammered, "but—I thought that you thought—Rolf said that Sigurd—"

For perhaps the first time in his life, Rolf's cheeks burned with mortification as a derisive snap of the chief's fingers fell upon his ear.

"Sigurd! Your playmate! With whom you have quarrelled and made up since there were teeth in your head! By Peter, if it were not that the joke appears to lie wholly on my side, I could find it in my heart to punish the four of you without mercy, for no other crime than your opinion of my intelligence!"

Alwin took a hesitating step forward. He had been standing where his first defiance had left him, a light of comprehension dawning in his face; and also a spark of resentment kindling in his eyes.

Now he said slowly, "It is not your anger which appears strange to us, chief. It is the slowness of your justice. That knowing all this time of our deceit, you have yet remained quiet. That you have allowed us to live in dreams, and led us on to behave ourselves like fools! We have been no better than mice under the cat's paw." He glanced at Helga's thin cheeks and the pain-lines around her mouth, and the full force of his indignation rang out in his voice. "To us it meant life or death, heaven or hell,—was it worthy of a man like you to find amusement in our suffering?"

Though it was as faint as the rustling of leaves, unmistakable applause swept around. Rolf dared to clap his hands softly.

The chief replied by a direct question, as he leaned back against the maple and eyed his young rebel piercingly. "Befooling and bejuggling were the drinks you prepared for me; was it not just that you should learn from experience how sour a taste they leave in the mouth?"

Though moment after moment dragged by, Alwin did not answer that. His eyes fell to the ground, and he stood with bent head and clenched hands.

The chief went on. "You who could so easily fathom the workings of my mind, should have no need to ask my motives. It may be that I found entertainment in playing you like a fish on a line. Or it may be that I was not altogether sure of my ground, and waited to be certain before I stepped. Or perhaps I was curious to see what you would do next, and felt able to gratify my curiosity since I knew that, through all your antics, I held you securely in the hollow of my hand. Or perhaps—" Leif hesitated for an instant, and there crept into his voice a note so unusual that all stared at him,—"or perhaps, in becoming sure of my ground, I became uncertain of the honor of the man whom I wished to place highest in my friendship, and so deemed it wisest to remain under cover until he should reveal all the hidden parts of his nature. It may have been for any or all of these reasons. You, who have come nearer to me than any man alive, should have no difficulty in selecting the true one."

Was it possible that reproach rang in those last words? It sounded so strangely like it, that Tyrker involuntarily curved his hand around his ear to amend some flaw in his hearing.

Alwin's face underwent a great change. Suddenly he flung his arms apart in a gesture of utter surrender.

"I will strive against you no longer!" he cried, passionately. "You are as much superior to me as the King to his link-boy. Do as you like with me. I submit to you in everything." He fell upon his knee and hid his face in his hands.

Then the tone of Leif's voice became so frankly friendly that Helga's beautiful head was raised as a drooping flower's by the soft spring rain.

"Already you have heard your sentence. The fair words I spoke to Robert the Norman I spoke also to Alwin of England. When I promised wealth and friendship and honor to Robert Sans-Peur, I promised them also to you. Take the freedom and dignity which befit a man of your accomplishments and—with one exception—ask of me anything else you choose."

With one exception! Helga sprang forward and caught Leif's hand imploringly in hers. And Alwin, still upon his knee, reached out and grasped the chief's mantle.

"Lord," he cried, "you have been better to me, a hundredfold better, than I deserve! Yet, would you be kinder still... Lord, grant me this one boon, and take back all else that you have promised."

The chief's brawny hand touched Helga's face caressingly.

"Do you still believe that I would rub salt on your wounds, if it were in my power to relieve you?" he reproached them. "But one man in the world has the right to say where Helga shall be given in marriage; he is her father, Gilli of Trondhjem. Already I have done him a wrong in permitting, by my carelessness, that one of thrall-estate should steal his daughter's love. In honor, I can do no less than guard the maiden safely until the time when he can dispose of her as pleases him. I do not say that I will not use with him what influence I possess; yet I advise you against expecting anything favorable from the result. I think you both know his mercy."



CHAPTER XXX

FROM OVER The SEA

At night is joyful He who is sure of travelling entertainment; A ship's yards are short; Variable is an autumn night; Many are the weather's changes In five days, But more in a month. Ha'vama'l

It developed, however, that the lovers' chances for happiness did not hang upon so frail a thread as the mercy of Gilli of Trondhjem. While the exploring vessel was still at sea, with the icy headlands of Greenland only just beginning to stand out clearly before her bow, unexpected tidings reached those on board.

Watching the chief, who stood by the steering oar, erect as the mast, his eyes piercing the distance ahead, Sigurd put an idle question.

"Can you tell anything yet concerning the drift-ice, foster-father? And why do you steer the ship so close to the wind?"

Without turning his head, Leif answered shortly, "I am attending to my steering, foster-son."

But as the jarl's son was turning away, with a shrug of his shoulders for the rebuff, the chief added in the quick, curt tone that with him betrayed unwonted interest, "And I am looking at something else. Where are your eyes that you cannot see anything remarkable? Is that a rock or a ship which I see straight ahead?"

Sigurd's aimless curiosity promptly found an object; yet after all the craning of his neck and squinting under his hand, he was obliged to confess that he saw nothing more remarkable than a rock.

Leif gave a short harsh laugh.

"See what it is to have young eyes," he said. "Not only can I see that it is a rock, but I can make out that there are men moving around upon it."

"Men!" cried Sigurd.

Excitement spread like fire from stern to bow, until even Helga of the Broken Heart arose from her cushions on the fore-deck and stood listlessly watching the approach.

Eyvind the Icelander muttered that any creatures in human shape that dwelt on those rocks, must be either another race of dwarfs, or such fiends as inhabit the ice wastes with which Greenland is cursed; but an old Greenland sailor silenced him contemptuously.

"Landlubber! Has it never been given you to hear of shipwrecks? When Eric the Red came to Greenland with thirty-five ships following his lead, no less than four of them went to pieces on that rock. It is the influence of Leif's luck which has caused a shipwreck so that the chief can get still more honor in rescuing the distressed ones."

The Icelander grunted. "Then is Leif's luck very much like the sword that becomes one man's bane in becoming another man's pride," he retorted.

While he threw all his strength against the great oar, the chief signalled to Valbrand with his head.

"Drop anchor and get the boat ready to lower," he commanded. "I want to keep close to the wind so that we may get to them. We must give them help if they need it. If they are not peaceful, they are in our power, but we are not in theirs."

As the boat bounded away on its errand of mercy, every man and boy remaining crowded forward to watch its course. In some way it happened that Alwin of England was pushed even so far forward as the very bow of the boat, and the side of the shield-maiden.

The sun rose in her glooming face when she turned and saw him beside her.

"I have hoped all day that you would come," she whispered; "so I could tell you an expedient I have bethought myself of. Dear one, from the way you have sat all the day with your chin on your hand and your eyes on the sea, I have known that you needed comfort even more than I; and my heart has ached over you till once the tears came into my eyes."

Her lover gazed at her hungrily. "Gladly would I give every gift that Leif has lavished on me, if I might take you in my arms and kiss away the smart of those drops."

A fierce gleam narrowed Helga's starry eyes. "Before we part," she said between her teeth, "you shall kiss my eyes once for every tear they have shed; and you shall kiss my mouth three times for farewell,—though every man in Greenland should wish to prevent it."

Suddenly she hid her face against his shoulder with a little cry of despair.

"But you must never come near me after I am married!" she breathed. "The moment after my eyes had fallen upon your face, I should turn upon my husband and kill him."

"If it had not happened that I had already slain him," Alwin murmured. Then he said, more steadily, "This is useless talk, sweetheart. Tell me the thought which comforted you. At least it will be a joy to me to cherish in my heart what you have treasured in your brain."

Helga looked out over the tumbling water with eyes grown wide and thoughtful.

"I will not be so hopeful as to call it a comfort yet," she said, "too vague is its shape for that. It is a faint plan which I have built on my knowledge of Gilli's nature. As well as I, you know that he cares for nothing but what is gainful for him. Now if I could manage to make myself so ugly that no chief would care to make offers for me... is it not likely that my father would cease to value me and be even glad to get rid of me, to you? I would disfigure myself in no such way that the ugliness would be lasting," she reassured him, hastily. "But if I should weep my eyes red and my cheeks pale, and cut off my hair... It would all come right in time; you would not mind the waiting?"

Alwin looked at her with a touch of wonder.

"And you would go ugly for me?" he asked. "Hide your beauty and become a jest where you have always been a queen, for no other reason than to sink so low that I might reach up and pluck you? Would you think it worth while to do that for me?"

But his meaning was lost on Helga's simplicity. She gathered only that he thought the scheme possible, and hope bloomed like roses in her cheeks.

"Oh, comrade, do you indeed think favorably of the plan?" she whispered, eagerly. "I had not the heart to hope much from it; everything has failed us so. If you think it in the least likely to succeed, I will cut off my hair this instant."

In spite of his misery, Alwin laughed a little.

"Do you then imagine that the gold of your hair and the red of your cheeks is all that makes you fair?" he asked. "No, dear one, I think it would be easier to make Gilli generous than you ugly. No man who had eyes to look into your eyes, and ears to hear your voice, could be otherwise than eager to lay down his life to possess you. Trust to no such rootless trees, comrade. And do not raise your face toward me like that either; for, in honor, I may not kiss you, and and you are not ugly yet, sweetheart."