It seemed to Gard that he had never seen so great a change in any one. From the unkempt brown hair to the black cloak that hung about his heels in rusty rags, he was as different from what he had been as November from June. His face showed the change most of all, for no glow of red was left in the brown, and his eyes were like cinders out of which the fire had died. From Gard's throat there burst suddenly a dry sob; and before the Swordless could move, his one-time follower was kneeling before him, clutching at his tattered cloak.
"Alrek! Come back and let me make it up to you. I can not sleep at night with thinking what I brought upon you. I beg you to come back!"
When he had stood a while looking down at him, Alrek spoke with suppressed scorn: "Are you still trying to spend your money and keep it too? You do not want to bear the burden of your deed, yet you knew when you slew him that some one must suffer for it——"
"I slay him? I did not! I did not! I only told that lie——"
"So that I repeated it and became also a liar. I would not believe you though you swore with your hand on the Boar's head. You tried to take back the weapon which Brand gave, and the Skraelling resisted and you struck—with my hatchet which you had found where it dropped when I fell. I tell you I would not believe you though you took oath on the Cross. Let go my cloak and get away from me. If you had more than a dog's wit you would know better than to talk of making it up to me; you would know that I am disgraced forever. Let go my cloak before I kick you away as I would a dog." Freeing himself, he was gone.Gard reached the door only in time to see him pass out of the gate, Domar eagerly saluting; then the forest took him again into its silent keeping.
Thrusting his hands through his belt, the Ugly One leaned against the casing and spoke heavily to the hound that had left a noonday nap to come and fawn upon him. "It is likely that we have low minds as he says, Fafnir.... Yet, for all he says, we are faithful.... We do not lay it up against a friend if it happen that he ill-use us...." Seeing the bristles begin suddenly to rise along the hound's spine, he looked up to find Thorhall the Huntsman swinging past over the grass. He finished with a sound very like the one coming from the dog's great throat: "And both of us can tell a foe when we see him!"
"A sail is not a small thing to ask for," Gudrid observed,—then raised a finger hastily as Erlend would have pleaded his cause. "You will put me in the most disobliging temper if you wake the child! As far off as the table I heard him crying, and came and found that it had happened as I suspected, that Roswitha had slipped out and left him. And he would not be quieted unless I got a cord and looped it around his feet and let him hold the ends and play at driving horses while he went to sleep!" She laid a hand on the Amiable One's silken sleeve, and another on the arm of Brand Erlingsson, and drew them gently off the dangerous ground out into the great back dooryard where the four households of Vinland sat in that contented idleness which follows the evening meal.
Roundabout the grassy space the stockade rose in grim foreboding; but the three gates opened wide upon shadowy grove and silvered meadow, and their three guards left their posts at will to bandy jests with their comrades at the long tables under the trees. Over the juice of the Vinland grape the men were lounging contentedly, while the cook-fires sank into red embers, and the moon sailed up from the tree-tops and floated free in the blue above them.
"It is certainly a night to bewitch one into promising anything! You choose your time well," Gudrid said with a little shake of the sleeves she was holding.
Brand moved his arm away abruptly; there was a limit to the liberties which even one who was asking a favor could endure. Erlend, however, was always affable.
"That will be seen if you grant our request," he answered. "It could not take you long, Gudrid, if you are such a weaver as you consider yourself. And I promise you that you should not lose by it, for we would bring you back a fine present from our journey. The ship is well begunnow. We delayed about the sail as late as possible in the hope that Alrek would come back and do the asking for us. We know that his favor is no less with you because trouble has come on his hands."
Gudrid's face lost some of its wonted sweet serenity. "Alas, my kinsman!" she sighed. "I wish my favor could do something useful for him. I can tell you that even the child is full of longing for him. Time and again, when he hears a step that is like Alrek's, he turns his eyes toward the door and cries when it is not his kinsman who comes in."
The three walked a little way in silence; Erlend frowning perplexedly at the ground, Brand kicking the heads off the clovers in the sullen discomfort which this subject always aroused in him. Presently Gudrid came slowly to a standstill.
"I am going yonder to speak with Jorund, Siggeir's wife," she said. "I do not say that I will not do your weaving for you, but I must see first how it goes with my dairy work. In the meanwhile, I wish you luck with your undertaking."
"That is no worse than a promise," Erlend returned blandly, "for if you do in truth wish us luck, you will help us all you can." And they departed from her in high feather to tell their comrades of the boon granted.
Standing where they had left her, Gudrid pondered a while whether she really would cross the grass to the spot where Jorund and the two other Greenland women gossiped beside a door-step, or whether she would go into the booth where Karlsefne sat with his chiefs over a chart. There was a matter of cheeses that she particularly wished to discuss with Jorund, and yet it would be interesting to hear whether the Lawman had seen any trace of Skraellings in his trip that day. Considering, she put a hand up to finger her amber necklace, as was her habit, and made the discovery that it was not there. She took her hand away with a gesture of impatience.
"Now will Karlsefne laugh at me, for he has always said that this would happen if I allowed Snorri to play with it! I remember that it was by the river, where I sat with him this afternoon. I gave it to him to bite, and then it happened thathe dropped it to reach out for the boat which Biorn was rowing past; and Biorn called to me, and I forgot to pick it up again. Tch! What a stupid business! It is in my mind to slip out and get it before any one notices that it is gone. The exact spot is known to me."
Going over to the western gate, she looked out toward the shining river. Less than a dozen trees dotted the space between her and the little knoll on the bank where she had rested, and the moon made it almost as bright as day. She gathered up her trailing kirtle with prompt decision.
"Any Skraelling small enough to hide in those shadows, is not big enough to be afraid of," she said, and passed out quickly with her firm light step.
That anything besides Skraellings might lurk in the shadows, she seemed to forget. Reaching the bank, she sent one look of admiration out over the radiant river, then bent her gaze to the foot of the tree among whose roots her fingers were swiftly feeling. To look up into the branches she had no thought whatever.
Yet not ten paces from her, Death lay along abough,—Death in a tawny body with eyes like fire and a tail like a serpent, noiselessly lashing the air as the graceful form crouched for a spring.
The first warning she had was when a voice she knew spoke sharply from the shadows before her: "Lie down on your face!" The catastrophe came only a breath after the warning. As she threw herself forward, something leaped over her and met something else in mid-air. There was the jar of heavy bodies striking the earth, a crackle of breaking twigs, and the silver stillness was profaned by a horrible sound of snarling and long-drawn gasps.
Clutching at the tree-trunk, she tried to pull herself to her feet; but the two struggled on the very skirt of her robe and held her pinioned. Only over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of the giant cat, where it lay on its back, clutching in its claws the boy who knelt on its lashing body with no other weapon against the gaping jaws than his bare brown hands. It seemed to her that she shrieked, and it is certain that she swooned; for the next thing she knew, she lay on her face in the grass with Alrek bending toward her.
"It is over," he said briefly, and dragged a heavy weight from her skirt.
Pulling herself to her feet, she leaned dizzily against a tree, staring down at the strange monster that had the shape of a cat and the size of a hound.
"You choked him?" she whispered.
The Swordless One nodded. "There was no other way. Last week I saw him leap down upon a deer and suck the blood from its throat. I thought then that my hands onhisthroat would be my only chance if ever we had dealings together. Yet I did not think that he would come so near the wall."
"It is God's miracle that you also chanced to be near it," she breathed.
"It is not all chance," he answered. "I have been here more than one night since they began to set the tables under the trees. Torchlight attracts other things besides sharks. It is like watching the red lights of the North, to watch the cook-fires shine on the branches; and when the men sing over their wine, the sound reaches out here so that it is almost the same as though I were among—" He came slowly to self-consciousness, and turned away and gave his attention to sopping with his ragged cloak the blood trickling from his torn limbs.
With no other weapon than his bare brown hands.
The sight of wounds brought Gudrid instantly to her capable self. "Tch," she said; and tearing her apron into strips, she put his hands aside and fell to work with skilful swiftness. For a little, nothing was said between them.
Yet it was not of the bleeding flesh that either was thinking in the silence. More than once, Alrek insisted that the work was done and tried to pull away from her and escape; and as her fingers flew, her mind went even faster, seeking some means by which to bind up the bleeding spirit as well. Suddenly, with her eyes on the empty brown hands that were yet so full of power, the way was opened to her.
Looking up from where she knelt beside him, she spoke courageously: "Kinsman, there is little need that I should tell you what you know by yourself,—that although Karlsefne would grant you a pardon in payment for this help, he would not give you his faith, which is what you want."
Though he had not flinched from the touch ofher hand on his wounds, the boy winced under her words. "I want neither his faith nor his pardon!" he said between his teeth. "I beg you to let me go."
"Not until you have heard me," she answered. "I have said this to show you that I am not speaking soft lies, but the truth. Now I am going to tell you more truth; the right-minded thing for you to do is to come back to the band and live as one of the men, until some twist of the thread brings your rank back to you."
She worked a while after that without looking up, for she could feel his glance beating down upon her. After a time he said huskily:
"It is of no use ... I am dishonored...."
At that she raised her eyes with a hint of scorn. "It is true then that you did slay the Skraelling?"
He looked at her sorrowfully. "I had thought that you would believe in me, kinswoman."
"Why, so I did," she answered, "until I heard you say that you were dishonored. For if you did not touch the deed, how could it stain you?" Rising up, she laid her palms upon his breast andmade him give her eye for eye. "Did it make your hands helpless because no sword was in them to-night?" she challenged him. "I think I have never seen weapons more powerful; nor was your eye less quick to see my peril, nor your heart less brave to help me,—nay, you were twice brave that you came with empty hands! Will you belie the courage and honor which you know you have, because you lack the red cloth and the bit of steel that are the runes which stand for them? If you will, you are not the Alrek Ingolfsson that I had wished my child would be like."
Looking into his eyes she saw a fire, long quenched, kindle and burn; and her palms on his breast felt the deep breath he drew; nor did he have any words of disproof. Discreet as she was bold, she asked for no words of assent. Leaving him, she went and tried to lift the forepart of the limp body.
"Get this upon your back," she said. "The Champions will become glad at this."
Silently he obeyed, drawing the dangling paws over his shoulder so that the long body hung down his back like a tawny cloak. Slowly he followedafter as she turned and led the way toward the gate,—until they were within two spear-lengths of it and a hubbub of voices and laughter came out to them like a puff of wind. Then gradually his pace slackened, and she looked around to find that his face was flooded with painful color.
She had the impulse to reach out and catch hold of him; but it was the impulse which came to her lips that she acted on, speaking as quietly as she would have spoken to her child had he ventured too near the edge of a cliff: "I do not know whether it is to your mind to enter the camp with me, but it is the truth that I shall hear enough of my foolishness without having you lead me home as well as save me. If I slip through this gate, as I came, will you use the east one, which is also nearer your own booth?"
Then she knew that she had guessed aright, for once more he moved forward, and under his breath he answered: "Yes."
By the time she had gained the center of the green, she knew also that he had kept his word. Suddenly a joyous uproar went up from the tableful of Vinland Champions, and some were rolledoff the benches in the haste of others to get on their feet; and crossing the moonlit space beyond them, she saw a soldierly young figure with a mass of yellow fur swinging from his shoulder—saw him and then lost him in the throng that closed, cheering, about him.
Her firm sweet mouth relaxed happily. "That is the first step toward a good outcome," she said. "If the Fates have any justice in their breasts, they will attend to the rest." And from afar she beamed brightly on the group, even as the moon above was beaming upon her.
Over the boulders between which the narrow trail wound down to the building place on the beach, Thorhall's green eyes stared in surprise. After a three days' scouting trip, he had taken a roundabout way campward in order to get a glimpse of the vessel in whose progress he was interested, but it appeared that here was more change than he had anticipated.
Grown to all its graceful outlines the ship still waited on its rollers, high enough up on the shelving beach to rest immune from the whims of the tide. Around it and in it and under it the band worked as usual, whistling and wrangling amiably. But a pace to the right, where a rock humped through the gravel offered chance for a forge, there was a feature new to the scene,—a brown-haired young smith hammering vigorously at a bar ofglowing iron. If he did not whistle as he hammered, yet he worked as steadily as though he had always stood there; and above the hum could be heard Brand's voice, speaking with eager deference:
"Alrek, is it your opinion that a bolt is needed here, or will it be sufficient to tie this plank?"
While Ingolf's son made brief answer between the strokes of his hammer, the Huntsman descended the rest of the trail in scowling cogitation. When the noise of question and answer had subsided, he came out suddenly upon the beach.
"Hail to the chief!" he said.
If the salute was designed to ask a question as well as offer greeting, it served its purpose. The brown-haired smith did not even turn his head; it was still Erlend the Amiable who answered to the title, straightening quickly to give back nod for nod.
"Thorhall! Now I am glad you are back to release us from our promise to let no one know the secret of the south country. Tell Alrek without delay about the treasure-land you have found."
There was delay, however, in the manner in which the Huntsman moved forward, paused tolook at whatever addition in the boat interested him, paused to unwind a fetter of seaweed bubbles from his ankle, and finally seated himself on a boulder and studied the smith intently.
"Have you come back for good?" he inquired.
Before Alrek could speak, Gard—working behind him—answered by a jeer: "Some may have cause to think that he has come back for ill."
In the interests of peace Erlend raised his voice: "I beg of you, Gard, to turn fox for a while and go down the beach and dig enough clams to fill your cloak-skirt; so that we shall be fed, when noontime comes, without going back to the camp."
It seemed to the Huntsman that there was something suspicious in the docility with which Gard obeyed, somewhat as though he felt that he was leaving a sentinel behind him. The small eyes continued their study of the smith, as an angler might study a fish while he was considering what spear to employ. After a silence, which no one ventured to break, he spoke bluntly:
"The country south and west of here is inhabited by dwarfs. By that I do not mean merelypeople who are small-shaped, but the Northern race that is skilled in metal-work. You remember that Tyrfing was forged by such? Now I think you have yourself a sword—I ask you not to blame me! I did not mean to press that wound. But at least it serves to make plain to you whom I mean. In this land, they live in caverns of the gold-bearing mountains of which the south and west country is full. I think I have described to you their homes?"
The band answered even rapturously: "Never shall I forget it!" "No king's palace could—" "I wish Alrek had heard—" "Tell over about that one with the golden roof—" "Yes, good Thorhall!" "Yes!" "Yes!"
It did not appear that Thorhall heard them; as a hawk might watch a coop for the appearance of the chickens, he was watching Alrek's mouth for the first word of doubt.
None came. Slowly, the smith's blows became further between. Presently he rested his hammer on the rock and his elbow on the hammer handle. "That is of the greatest interest," he said thoughtfully. "And it comes to my mind to wonder if itcould have been your dwarfs that Rolf Erlingsson saw when he was here with Leif the Lucky? He said those creatures were low as junipers, while Skraellings are most of them of good height—Yet he said also that they were poor and mean-looking! Your dwarfs must be as rich as Hnoss herself." He ended uncertainly.
But the Huntsman leaned back and smote his great knee with rare enthusiasm. "Now your comrades are right in valuing your wit above others!" he said. "Never had the thought come to me before, yet it is twice as likely as not. So cunning are they, that it would be altogether according to their custom to disguise themselves like Skraellings when they had the wish to spy upon strangers. It cannot be said that they have a fondness for strangers. You know that it was a dwarf who caused my wreck at Keel Cape?"
"No, that is a story you have not told us," the band cried eagerly.
He looked at them indulgently. "Now it is not much of a tale. The beginning of it is that I pried too deep into an old long-beard's secrets, so that I had to run for my life. I should be feasting onboar-flesh in Valhalla now, if I had not left the boat with its stem toward the water and the oars in the row-locks; for we were no more than out of sight of land when the dwarf-man reached the shore." He paused to glance around the group. "I suppose you remember how King Skiold blew upon a passing ship so that the boom fell over and killed Eystein where he stood by the steering oar?" he inquired.
While they nodded impatiently, Alrek spoke in confirmation: "I believe that to be true, because once I met a Finnish sailor who could change the wind by turning his cap."
"You have seen so much of the world," the Huntsman said admiringly, "that it would become a great misfortune if you should lose this chance of seeing more wonders. To go on relating,—the dwarf used the same trick, though a little differently. Instead of blowing, he raised a gale only by flapping his cloak; and the water rose behind us in a sea-wall. I had often wondered what it would be like to be at the spot where a storm begins, and that time I found out. The water rose behind us with a roar, and swept us along past the entrance tothe Vinland bay until we struck the Keel bar, and the boat went to pieces and the other three went down and Thor saved me. Hallad felt very unwilling to drown. You remember I had on only one boot when you found me? I can remember feeling something pull at the other so that I thought a shark had me and gave it a strong kick off. Now I know that it was Hallad clutching at it. I suppose it was because he got bitter that I did not help him, that he comes back to haunt me."
"That would be in every respect like Hallad," Brand said scornfully. "He was always wont to expect some one to look out for him. Thorhall, will you not let us see that chain again, that Alrek may get it clear before his mind what great things are in store for us?"
It appeared from his manner that there was nothing Thorhall would not do to oblige them. "Willingly," he answered, and straightway undid the bag around his neck. Dropping their tools, they came and stood around him in so cosy a circle that the Ugly One, far down the beach, took one fist out of the oozy gravel it was raking to shakeit at them, and never knew that the other hand had turned up a clam until a jet of water struck him in the face.
If the necklace had sparkled in the gray light of the Wonderstrands, it may be imagined what it did here in the sun. Some of the gems encrusting it were blue as the bay before them, and some were like pearls in which a fire had been kindled, and some were like nothing less than stars. The Huntsman let Alrek reach out and take it for himself, and the young Viking drew a quick breath of pleasure as he felt its weight.
"Now I have seen booty taken from kings' palaces, but never anything to match this," he said. "It was without doubt the luck of our lives that we found you that day on the Wonderstrands. I remember overhearing you say to Faste that the reason you would not bring your news forward in the hall was because you did not want the chiefs to take the power out of your hands. I suppose the reason you share the secret with us is because we can give the help of a ship?"
Erlend looked up in surprise, the necessity of a reason for the Huntsman's cordiality not havingbefore occurred to him. The Huntsman looked out from under roughened brows, though he kept his words smooth.
"Now you do less than justice to your comrades' valor and accomplishments," he began. But he stopped as he saw one of Alrek's eyes close in good-humored derision.
"When is it your intention to sail?" the Swordless brought him back to the point.
The Huntsman reached out and took back his chain. "That you must ask your chief," he answered; and spite was so evident in his use of the title, that the Amiable One hastened to answer before he could be asked:
"I think it will take about five days more to finish the outfittings, and then two to stock it with food. If a fair wind blows on it, we can surely sail on the tenth day."
Slowly Alrek lowered the hammer he had raised to return to his work. "It must be that you are forgetting the Skraellings," he said. "Because the hunters have seen nothing of them, proves little; Leif Ericsson's men saw nothing of the dwarfs until they were upon them. It is a suresign, when a slain man is found lying on his face, that he will be revenged. Any day it may happen that they come; and if we should be away hunting gold while our camp-mates fought for their lives, we should get little fame though we brought back——"
The Huntsman rose to his gigantic height. "Are you the chief?" he snarled.
That was the third time he had pressed the wound; the flame in Alrek's cheeks sent sparks to his eyes as he wheeled.
"No, I am not the chief," he answered squarely, "but I have the right of every free man to make my voice heard in deciding matters, and I can tell you that it is going to be heard though you weave all the spells you know."
Perhaps the Huntsman did try to weave a spell, for he turned at once toward those who had so far obeyed his every move like snake-charmed birds. "What of you?" he hissed. "Will you put off this chance for treasure, to fight for the Lawman who disbelieved your oaths and showed disrespect to your high-seat?"
And the chorus answered him loudly: "No!"
And Brand made himself conspicuous by his fierceness. "Let the Skraellings cut blood-eagles in Karlsefne!"
It is likely that he wished directly after that he had kept still, for instead of praise, it brought him a look of scathing contempt from the Swordless.
"Now you talk like fools," the young Viking said, "to think to revenge private wrongs in wartime. He would be a fine soldier who because he had a grudge against his chief would desert in time of battle and leave his comrades to fight alone. No knife could scrape off this shame."
They quailed so under that, that the Huntsman's green eyes became like the eyes of a Vinland elk at bay. Turning where Erlend stood silent, he struck again:
"You then,—if you have any power who call yourself the chief!"
Erlend laughed uneasily; his handsome face had turned painfully red. "It seems that I was mistaken in thinking that that name belonged to me," he answered.
Crimsoning, Alrek fell from his hill of scorn to the valley of abashment. "Erlend, I meant no—no disrespect toward you," he stammered. "I did not mean to step out of my place—" He was obliged to stop, for Erlend's hand closed over his mouth.
"What are you talking about?" the Amiable One said sternly. "That is in no way what I mean. What you did was to step into the place that belongs to you." He exerted some of his strength to keep his palm where he had put it. "Listen to me! I am unfit to have the rule over anything. Never did it come into my head that leaving would be disloyal. I should have done a nithing thing which the saga-men would never have forgotten. I know of no better happening than that you should come into your own in time to save me." He stretched out his other hand toward the assembled Champions. "You shouted before when I said that I should offer the chiefship back. I shall think your tongues of little value if you keep them between your teeth now!"
The eagerness with which Brand offered thefirst cheer seemed designed to make up for his blunder of the moment before. He was seconded by a deep roar from Gard, who had just come up with his burden on his back. After that, there was no separating the shouts that came; and they banged their tools against the ship in lieu of swords and shields.
When the racket had subsided, Erlend turned back to the Swordless with a smile that had yet a touch of haughtiness. "I shall take it as an insult to my pride if you ask me to keep what so plainly belongs to you," he said.
After a while Alrek looked up from the trenches his foot was digging in the sand. "I will accept it gladly, if Karlsefne will allow me to," he answered; and there was more cheering and all hands were stretched out to him.
All but two, that is; shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, Brand and Gard the Ugly stood aside nor dared make any advances.
The Swordless himself hesitated when finally he came to them, and his face caught some of their embarrassed color; but at last he put out his hand.They gripped it eagerly, and there was more cheering.
Under cover of it the Huntsman turned and stalked away; and what had been angry suspicion as he descended the trail, was angry certainty as he stamped up it.
"And I will seek out Gudrid, whose counsel is good in everything," Alrek said as he and Erlend rose from the morning meal at the table under the trees, "if so be you give me leave to be late to the work."
"If so be you need leave from me, you have it for anything you do," Erlend answered.
Then the Amiable One and all the Champions not bound to kitchen-posts took their leisurely way through the cool green forest to the waiting ship; and Alrek the Swordless turned in the opposite direction and strolled past the empty tables and groups of trencher-laden thralls toward Karlsefne's booth.
Before the door-step small Snorri tumbled about in the clover, shouting lustily for his mother to come and play with him; which seemed to Alrekso good a reason for expecting her prompt arrival that he troubled himself to go no further. Stretching his lithe length on the grass, he changed the cries into laughter by butting the crier over on his back each time he opened his mouth; and the maneuver was crowned with immediate success. After a very little time, Gudrid appeared in the door, a piece of sewing in her hand, inquiry in her blue eyes.
"Oh! That is why he stopped screaming!" she said with an accent of relief. "So long as he is crying, I know that he is safe. Now you are a lazy-goer, kinsman, to be lying on the grass when every one else is at work."
Shaking the clovers from his hair, Alrek sat up,—he would have stood up if it were not that the Frowner had crept across his feet. "I wait only to ask your advice, kinswoman, about a way to speak alone with Karlsefne. For two days I have looked in vain for a chance. I want to get his justice."
Coming out of the doorway, Gudrid seated herself on the step, and sat absently stabbing holes in her work with her bronze needle. "Justice is aheavy weapon to challenge unless you are sure that you stand very firm on your legs, kinsman," she said at last.
He answered: "I stand very firm," and the sternness of his voice was in singular contrast to the gentleness of his hand as he stretched it out to steady the Frowner in his upward progress.
Watching them, Gudrid's pucker of anxiety smoothed into a fond smile. "Now certainly I know that you are guiltless," she said. "I have only to see your behavior toward the child to be sure of that." She did not continue her assurances for Alrek's mouth had curved into amiable derision.
"Why, that proves nothing," he said.
Gudrid's foot stirred the clovers. "I will give you the satisfaction of knowing that Karlsefne has made me the same answer. Sometimes it seems to me that a man's wit is like a bat, which disdains the good daylight to go about in, but must show its skill by finding its way in the dark! I can even guess that this very boldness of yours, which causes me to believe in you, will seem to the Lawman to be but another trick of your outlaw blood. Rememberhow they say in Greenland that a seal who tries to swim against too strong a current has often to turn back and be caught by the hunters. Kinsman, kinsman"—she put out her hand and pressed his shoulder—"be very sure of your strength!"
"Yes," he said, and bent his head to touch his lips to her fingers.
More than the words, the rare caress told her that his mood was no light one; and she warned no more. Rising, she spoke quietly: "I will do the only thing I can to give you help. Karlsefne is making the round of the meadows where the men are haying. I did not send his noon-meal with him—because I did not think it fitting that he should eat old bread, and the new is not yet out of the oven—but I had the intention to send it out to him by a thrall. Now if you choose you may carry it, and so get him apart for your purpose."
"That will serve well, and I give you thanks," Alrek answered.
Nodding, she went swiftly in to hurry the baking; and Alrek arose and setting the Frowner upon his shoulder paced to and fro in the sunshine that had settled over the camp like a goldenspell, subduing the bustle of morning activity to a drowsy drone.
Lulled by the hum and the slow motion, Snorri's yellow head began to nod, swaying and bobbing until it rested heavily upon the brown locks of his bearer. Gudrid received a bundle of sweet warm limpness in return for the basket and skin of ale which she finally brought out.
"It is not unlike gathering up a jellyfish," she laughed as she took him.
But Alrek's smile was faint in response. He had been thinking as he paced, and the gravity of what he was about to do was full upon him.
"I give you thanks," he said a second time, gently, and left her.
Outside, in the great free world beyond the wall, it seemed to him that everything was coaxing for a smile. The reach of woodland into which the grove deepened was alluring with the song of hidden brooks and spicy with the breath of pines and hospitable with berry thickets, black and red and blue as the river to which the wood finally gave way. The elms of the bank flaunted wreathing grape-vines; the rushes at the edge sporteddragon-flies like living jewels,—flashing in the sunlight, the river itself was one broad smile. Dull anger took possession of him when he found his spirits too heavy to rise in response.
"It may be that I should become a coward if this went on," he murmured. "I was not any too quick about making up my mind."
And when, a little further on, he came to a finger of the stream and saw on one of the mossy stepping-stones a water-snake struggling with a frog which was only half swallowed, he made no move to release the victim.
"Better to die whole than to live crippled," he told himself grimly, and kept on his way.
It seemed a very short way now before he came to the broad sunny valley whose fragrant basin was strewed with ripening hay, which men were tossing amid jests and laughter as became a crop planted without toil and raised without care. Spying him, they shouted greetings of good-humored banter; and he raised his hand mechanically, as his eyes roved to and fro seeking the blue-clad figure of the Lawman. It formed no part of the groups scattered over the valley, nor was it anywhere alonein the open—Ah, yonder it was in the shade of the spreading willow that rose solitary in the middle of the meadow! A smile twisted Alrek's lips as he moved forward.
"I wonder," he mused, "if it is a bad omen that I find him ready under a tree."
At least his luck was good enough so that he found the Lawman alone, sitting where two rocks made a seat beneath the willow; nor did he turn away when he saw who it was coming toward him through the sunshine. Over the fist upon which his bearded chin was resting, he watched the approach immovably.
When Alrek had come up and saluted him, he answered: "I shall know better how to receive you when I hear your purpose in taking this service on yourself."
"Gudrid allowed me to do this that I might speak alone with you," Alrek made brief explanation.
It seemed that Karlsefne's challenging gaze relaxed a little. "There is the greatest reason why Gudrid should wish to aid you," he said, "andscarcely am I out of your debt. I should be glad to hear that your errand hither is to ask a pardon from my gratefulness."
Sliding the ale-skin to the ground, the boy straightened proudly; but before he could answer, Karlsefne spoke on, unclenching his hand to pass it before his eyes:
"As you came toward me, you looked even as your father looked when he came to the Assembly Plain to hear the judges condemn him for his crimes; and now as then I hate the deeds and love the doer so that the two feelings are like two fires raging within me." Taking away his hand he showed the stern beauty of his face aglow with feeling, as some lofty rock under the touch of a red Northern light. "I beg of you to throw yourself upon my mercy. Defiance has gathered like drift-ice in your breast, shutting out all that would come through to bring you good. Break from it before it shuts you in forever. I beg of you to yield and give me the joy of trusting you again."
Ending, his deep voice held a note of yearninglove that made the boy's heart swell strangely in his breast. He had to speak hardly and shortly in order to be able to speak at all.
"Hard is it to know how to answer, for you offer me what I do not need. I came here to get your justice. If I broke your order, I deserve an evil death; if I did not, it is my right to live unshamed. If you know that it is I who slew the Skraelling, I ask you to have me placed against this tree and shot."
As a Northern light fades from a rock and leaves no warmth behind, so the glow faded from the Lawman's face. "Do you like it so well to die?" he asked.
"Sooner would I die than live as I have lived since your doom," Alrek answered.
Silence settled heavily upon them. When a great fly boomed out of the sunlit space and hung for a wink of time at the boy's ear, the sound seemed thunder-loud. But at last the Lawman spoke, his voice as hard as clanging iron:
"Not many men would go so far as to deal with me by force and overbearing, but you play the game as well as is to be expected of yourfather's son. Though I am sure of your guilt, you are right in believing that I am not sure enough to take your life when you lay it in my hand. And since it is proved that I am not sure, I may not punish you at all. It is well played. There are two choices before you,—the one is to let matters stand as they are now, so that your life is safe and the future is yours to redeem your credit in; the other is to get back your honors as you demand, with the condition that if ever this case comes again before my high-seat and so much as a feather's weight more of evidence is given against you, I shall declare your life to be forfeit."
The long safe way is seldom the way of youth; one must have traveled far and fallen often to make that choice. The young Viking answered without hesitation: "I will take my honors and the risk."
Rising, the Lawman made him a chief's salute. "So be it," he said. "To-night in the hall, even as I took them from you, I will give them back before all eyes. In this and whatever follows, it shall be as you have chosen." He lifted his hand as the boy would have thanked him.
In obedience to the gesture, the Chief of the Champions halted and bowed before him in silence; but his brown head was carried high when he walked away, and his eyes were two radiant suns of hope.
Like dew on a fresh berry a silver gauze of mist lay over the fresh day, and the birds' answers to the sun were still far-between and sleepy, as Hjalmar Thick-Skull came out of the bayward gate and sauntered down the meadow-slope to the beach. Of late he had given over fishing in the river for fishing in the bay, where a flat island lay like a lily-pad on the water. With his tackle on his shoulder and a song on his lips, he came down where his boat was waiting and sent a careless glance around the horizon. Then the song was changed to a cry, and he went back up the slope in long bounds, deafening the man at the gate as he burst in upon him.
"Skraellings! Around the long point they are coming in shoals!"
Staring, the guards stammered the words afterhim; but an Icelander who was passing caught them up with a roar and started on a run for Karlsefne's booth. The hounds lying under the trees leaped up and raced beside him, barking; out of every door that he passed uncombed heads were thrust, shouting questions. In the draft of a breath, the news had spread like fire.
Reaching the Chief of the Champions where he stood in his doorway, he sheathed the sword that he was polishing with so much pride and took a step toward the gate; then, bethinking himself of a quicker way to verify the report, he turned and made for a great pine-tree standing on a little knoll. With a run and a leap he went up the trunk, and clambered from one great bough to the next as though they were steps, until his head came out through the last layer of needles.
The Thick-Skulled had spoken truly. The bright plain of the bay was specked with dark skin-boats; eastward around the longest of the capes, they were like a dark tide rolling in upon the land. Something seemed to tighten in the Sword-Bearer's throat; and he was about to turn and let himself down swiftly to the bough below,when his eye was caught by a movement up the river bank, the passing of something dark athwart the green of a bush. Drawing his head down under the green roof, he hung by his arms, gazing intently. There was no open anywhere for the Thing to cross, and just that dark streak flitting through the bush-tops told nothing—and yonder was a white streak behind it! And beyond that a dark one! His hands tightened on the branch so that it crackled. Unless motes were dancing before his eyes, the bush was alive with the fleeting wisps, shapeless, soundless, but bearing down upon the camp. His heart seemed to turn over in his body, and he dropped like an ape from limb to limb.
Descending into the camp was like falling from the peacefulness of a masthead into the roar of the ocean. Wrangling and stamping about, the men were struggling into their shirts of ring-mail. Hammering on their shields to get attention, the chiefs were shouting orders. Bearing messages and distributing weapons, thralls rushed back and forth, followed by the yelping of dogs and the screaming of bondwomen from the doorways. Ittook main force on the part of the Champions' leader to get them aside and make them understand that it was not the enemy before them against whom they were to turn their blades.
"The number of those in the boats is so many times greater than we, that no men can be spared from the front," he concluded swiftly. "To find out what these Things are, and defend the gates against them, will be our share. And it is likely that much depends upon our getting into position without loss of time. Olaf and the Hare, I appoint to be my messengers; and I want to give Olaf a message now, while the Hare goes after my ring-shirt." Drawing the Fair One aside, he spoke forcefully in his ear until he yielded reluctant obedience and darted away in the direction of the pastures.
It may be admitted that reluctance was in most faces when a little later they turned their backs upon the uproar of the camp and stole out into the loneliness of the grove. Over their shield-rims, their eyes rolled apprehensively as their chief spread them into a broad crescent covering both gates, and led them warily forward. When thefirst high ground gained failed to reveal anything, they jumped at the idea that he had been mistaken in his spying, that the sun had dazzled his eyes, that what he had seen was but a line of low-flying swallows. They were urging it eagerly at the very instant that he was justified.
All at once it was as though every twig in the undergrowth ahead had turned into a bow, and the bow had shot an arrow at them. The rattle on their iron helmets was like the pelting of hail. If their bodies had not been armored, they would have gone down as grain before a scythe.
Alrek's voice rang out strongly: "Skraellings! Under cover! Make ready for their charge!"
In a flash they had leaped backward, behind trees, bushes, boulders, anything. The sunbeams broke into jagged lightnings as the bright swords sprang from the scabbards.
But no flesh appeared from the thicket beyond. The grove remained empty and silent as a grave. It shattered the stillness startlingly when Njal screamed:
"If they are Skraellings, why do they not come out and show themselves?" Then, withoutpausing for reply, he added another shout: "Those in the boats have landed!"
From the camp behind them swelled a din of Skraelling yells answered by Norse battle-cries, enforced at regular intervals by the hoarse barking of the leaders.
Njal cried shrilly: "Thatis the way in which Skraellings fight! These are trolls! Let us get loose from their net and turn back."
Only Alrek's uplifted spear stayed the rush. "I think you will find my weapon sharp if you do," he warned. "Whether they be men or trolls, we must take heart as we can and hold them from the gates. I urge you all to grip your swords and manfully hold your ground. They can not do you harm while you are under cover."
But it was not their bodies that they were afraid with, but their minds which had raised up specters. The sunlit space seemed all at once a cloak for shapes of horror. Dreading with every breath that the cloak would be drawn aside, their eyes shrank from what it might reveal as their flesh would not have shrunk from knives. They spoke as with one voice:
"This is jugglery and trickery only! We will go back where men fight against men!"
"You will not," spoke Alrek the Chief between his teeth. But even as he said it, he saw the hopelessness of expecting to hold them quiet, and made his last move. Throwing aside his spear he leaped out in front of them, brandishing his sword. "If you must move—move forward!" he cried. "You are nithings unless you follow my fate!"
Even then it is not certain that they would have obeyed if Brand had not redeemed much by promptly advancing to his chief's side.
"Ifollow!" he shouted; and Erlend and Gard were only a step behind him.
At that, the rest turned like sheep and came after, dodging from cover to cover, clambering, stumbling, ducking, jumping, lashing their courage with a fury of yelling.
Before the cold stillness had chilled them again, they saw the foe. Rising from behind boulders, slipping around trees, gliding through bushes, came creatures with gaudy-colored bodies naked as earthworms, and bristling black heads feathered like monstrous birds; so like and yet so hideouslyunlike the Skraellings, that Gard cried "Forest devils!" and the band turned with one impulse for flight. But behind them, across the ground they believed they had cleared, in the space between them and the gates, stretched another line. Out of their frenzy of fear, sprang a frenzy of hate; and they leaped upon the creatures with drawn swords and the others met them, brandishing stone hatchets.
For a time it was a wild game of dodging, with death as a penalty for awkwardness. Whether they were men or demons, the hatchet-bearers showed a dread of steel which kept them hovering beyond arm's reach whenever they were not darting at an opening. But at last the hungry swords tasted the flesh they craved, and their wielders' shouts of triumph stirred the rest to exulting excitement.
"We will wipe them out like flies!" Alrek cried.
Even as the words left his lips, he made a startling discovery. Laying low the figure in front of him, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that there was no one behind him; and turned backto find a man standing on the very spot that he had cleared. Striking him down, he whirled to see another hideous shape in the place that—a breath before—he had made empty.
At the same instant, Brand cried wildly: "It seems to me that they must rise from the dead since no matter how many one kills, there is always the same number confronting him."
Into Alrek's throat came the sense of choking which had seized him in the tree-top when he beheld that dark tide rolling in upon the land. Something seemed to mock in his ear: "It will be like killing the flies of the air one by one!" Then blotting out this came the wonder that Brand's voice should seem so far away; and he risked a glance around the grove, and his heart stood still.
In their mad charge, the Champions had broken their line; until now no two fought shoulder to shoulder but each stood alone, his back against a tree or a rock, a circle of hatchet-men around him. Even while their chief looked, three Champions were tempted into making dashes which carried them still wider apart. It would not be long before they would be lost to one another's sight, and theswarms would close in around them—He opened his mouth to send forth a frantic recall.
But the fiend-cunning of the black eyes watching him seemed to read his purpose on his lips. Suddenly the shapes around him raised an unearthly howl, which those on all sides caught up and kept up until the din was like a wall through which no sound could come or go.
Alrek's hands continued to fight from instinct, but his brain became numb. The horror long hovering over him settled lead-like upon him.
"Theyaretrolls!" he told himself; and his strength began to ooze out of him in icy droops.
He did not turn his head when above the din rose a roar even more appalling than the yells. When the creatures around him dropped their weapons to fly frantically this way and that, he remained standing where they had left him, plucking at an arrow which had pierced his arm below his mail. Gazing wonderingly, he saw a huge milk-white bull with mouth afoam and eyes like red flame come snorting out of the thicket, pausing now to paw up the earth before him, now to throw back his horned head with a terrific bellow.
Then, in a flash, his wits came back to him. Memory reminded him that his own lips had bidden Olaf drive the animal from the pasture for their re-enforcement; and sense told him that—even as he had hoped it might happen—the hatchet-bearers had taken the apparition to be the white man's god, come to his people's aid. Leaning back against the tree, he began to shake with laughter which was half weeping.
It seemed to little Olaf the Fair that there was something peculiar about the bearing of all the Champions, when a while later he met them back near the gates. Their greetings came in voices of unsteady shrillness, and their eyes were strangely bright. He said, pouting:
"I do not know whether you mean that the fight went against you or that you got the victory, but I warn you that I shall dislike it if you upbraid me for fetching the bull there so soon. I have got scolded enough by the men in camp. It appears that they spent the first part of the battle in running away from arrows, and they had only just got to work with their swords when I came through with the Bellower and sent the Skraellings flyingto their boats. I thought the Icelanders would have thrashed me. I shall not take it well if you also find fault——"
Their shaking high-pitched laughter drowned his voice.
"We will try to excuse you," Alrek said in a drawl that was still rather unsteady; whereat there was another outburst; and they swept clamoring shrilly through the gate.
Inside the wall it looked at the first glance like a trading day, with shining-shirted groups scattered everywhere across the green, each man flourishing some kind of weapon while he talked at the top of his great lungs. But at a second glance the resemblance was less, for no fair-time mood was in the mien of Karlsefne and his chiefs where they stood under the council-tree, wiping the paste of sweat and blood from their faces; and here and there men were writhing on the earth while the sharp knives of comrades cut arrow-heads out of their flesh. And suddenly the likeness ceased altogether, as four men came through the bayward gate, each pair carrying between them the body of a dead Icelander. Silence touched each group thefour passed; and through the hush, Karlsefne's voice clanged out like a bell, vibrating with wrath:
"I wonder at it that you have control enough left to hold your teeth over your tongues when the dead are borne past! Up to this time you have run mad like wolves that have tasted blood. I suppose the strange thing is not that you have broken the peace-bands at last but that I was able to hold your beast-cravings so long in check. It is all I can find to lessen the gall of my defeat."
So long as he stood before them, fixing them with his eyes like swords, they remained silent; but the booth door had no more than closed behind him than the excitement leaked out again. In a little while it was running as high as ever, as the men boasted of the great feats they had been on the verge of achieving, and vowed exulting vows about what they would do at the next meeting. It was plain indeed that the peace-bands which had held their swords in their scabbards were snapped forever.
The next day, under a storm-charged sky, the camp lay storm-charged. In the doorways, men stood talking restlessly, with now and again an outburst of sharp wrangling; out on the green, others refreshed their knowledge of spear-throwing; around the tables, still others plied sharpening stones upon ax blades which would never be used for trees. Setting forth with their last load of outfittings for the ship, the Champions shouted a battle-song in the face of the muttering thunder: