The same day Estein rowed across alone to Hrossey, and started over the hills with his bow and arrows. He walked for some miles through moorland ground, and paused at length on the top of a range of hills, whence he had a wide view over the inland country. There he sat down and mused for long. Below him he saw a valley opening out into a sweep of low-lying land, watered by many lochs, and bounded by heather hills. All round, in glimpses between the highest hill-tops, and in wide, unbroken stretches over the lower ranges, the open sea girdled the island. Gradually the stillness of the place and the freshness of the air told upon him, and at length he fell asleep. He began to dream, at first of confused events and hurrying faces, and then more distinctly and vividly. He had landed, he thought, on the Holy Isle. It was dark, but he seemed to see plainly a figure, wrapped in a long cloak, walking before him towards the cells. It was neither Andreas nor his daughter, and with some wonder he quickened his steps and overtook it just as it was about to enter the hermit's cell. Then all at once it seemed to flash upon him that this was no mortal visitor, and with a sudden thrill of fear he stopped. At that instant the figure turned a shrouded face on him, and said sternly, and so clearly that the words were ringing in his ears when he woke,—
"What doest THOU here, Estein Hakonson?"
He came to himself with a start, the sweat standing on his forehead. It was the second time he had heard the voice. Once before it had warned him when he first entered the hermit's cell, but now as then he could find neither name nor circumstance to fit it.
All at once the prophecy of Atli came into his mind—"You will be warned, but you will heed not," and in spite of himself a feeling of gloom settled over his mind.
A herd of deer browsed unheeded on a distant slope, the hours passed, and the sun sank low in the west, while he sat there alone.
At last he rose and retraced his steps back to the shore. The tide was running strongly, he had a long and stiff pull to win his way across, and the summer dusk that never reaches darkness in the north was gathering when he landed.
He looked round as though he expected to see a cloaked figure start up out of the gloaming, but the island was deserted and still. Before the cell he paused for an instant. "You will not heed the warning," he repeated. "Yet what is fated must be," and then he entered.
The hermit was alone. Farmer Margad had come for Osla, for his wife was unwell, and the credulous people thought the daughter of the wizard, as they deemed Father Andreas, might have some healing influence. Estein sat down and took his supper; and all the time he was eating, Andreas paced the floor saying nothing aloud, but muttering continually under his breath. Legends of shape-changing and black magic came into the young Viking's mind. As he watched the old man pass to and fro in the firelight, and the huge, distorted shadow sweep across and across the cell, he fancied once or twice that he could see the beginnings of some horrid transformation.
All of a sudden the hermit stopped and looked at him earnestly.
"Sing to me a song of battle!" he cried; and Estein saw that a change had indeed taken place. A fit of gloom had given way to a period of strange excitement, and the spirit of the sea-rover was returned.
Estein composed his mind, and sang the song of the Battle ofDunheath, beginning:—
"Many the chiefs who drank the meadAs the sun rose over the plain,But small the band who bound their woundsWhen the heath was dark again."
As the last words died away the hermit began to talk excitedly and volubly, and in a strain new to his guest.
"I once sang such songs," he said. "I sailed the seas in my long ship, and men feared my name—feared me, Andreas, the man of God. I was a heathen then, as thou art; I worshipped the gods of the North, and the hammer of Thor was my symbol on the ocean. I spared none who stood in my way. These hands have dripped with the blood of my foes, and many a widow have I left desolate."
He paused, and a tongue of flame shot suddenly from the fire and cast a bright light in the cell.
"Fire!" cried the old man—"fire like that have I brought on my foes! I have burned them like rats; I have left their homesteads smouldering! Listen, Vandrad, and I shall tell thee of a deed that made my name known throughout all the Northland. Now," he added, "I am a Christian man, and my soul is safe with Christ.
"Once I received an injury I swore I should avenge. Hakon, King of Sogn, a proud man and a stern, banished my brother Kolskegg for manslaughter. The deed was but an act of justice on one who had beguiled our kinswoman; but the dead man had many friends, and the king hearkened neither to Kolskegg's offers of atonement nor to my petitions—to mine, who had never asked aught of mortal man before! My brother was a dear friend of the king, foster-father even to his eldest son Olaf, and he weakly bowed his head and left the land. When I heard that he had gone, I pressed my sword-hilt so tightly in my rage that the blood dripped from my nails, and I cursed him aloud for idly suffering such insult to our house to pass without revenge. Our race is as old and proud as the kings of Sogn themselves, and I vowed that Hakon should rue that day. I was a heathen then, Vandrad."
He said these last words with a gleam in his eyes and a tightening of his lips, as if he gloated over the memory of his bygone faith. With the same grim reminiscent pleasure, he went on: "I and two others sent the cloven arrow through the dales, and gathered armed men enough to fill three ships. Ay, the sailing of Thord the Tall, Snaekol Gunnarson, and Thorfin of Skapstead is not forgotten yet in Norway. We went to Laxafiord, for there dwelt Olaf, son of Hakon. You have heard the tale?" he cried suddenly, "you know of the burning?"
"Go on," said Estein, in a hard, dry voice; "I am listening," and all the while his right hand sought his side.
"It was a deed," said the hermit, "that made all Norway ring. We landed in the night time, and saw the lights of the hall between the pine trees. They were feasting, and they heard not our approach. We made a ring round the house and heaped faggots against the walls, and still they heard us not. It was a dark night, Vandrad, very dark, till we lit a fire that was seen by men in the outer islands. Then they heard us, they smelt the smoke, and they ran to the doors. The first man who came out I clove to the waist, for none in Norway had greater skill at arms than I. Then we drove them in and closed the door. Sometimes at night I hear them shriek even now. There was never such a burning in Norway; we spared not one soul, not one.
"They asked us to let the women out, but we had come there to slay and not to spare. They shrieked, Vandrad; they cried till the roof fell in, and then they died. My soul is safe with God, and they are in outer darkness. There they will shriek for ever."
He paused for a moment, and then went on in the same strain of high excitement,—
"Now you know me. I am Thord the Tall, the burner of OlafHakonson."
"And where are Snaekol Gunnarson and Thorfin of Skapstead?" Estein spoke with difficulty, and his right hand had closed on something in his belt.
"Both are dead. They died heathens, and their souls are as hopelessly lost as the soul of Olaf Hakonson. I am the last of the burners."
The voice of Thord the Tall died away. Estein bent forward, his hand left his side, and something in it gleamed in the firelight.
Suddenly the hermit started.
"Osla! I hear Osla!" he said.
Estein thrust his dagger into its sheath, and bending in the doorway stepped out into the night. Below the cell he saw a boat leaving the land, and right before him, in the clear, cool twilight, the form of Osla.
"Have you tired of my father's company?" she asked, with a smile.
"I would be alone," he answered, and walked quickly past her.
Now he knew the twice-heard voice, and remembered the fleeting face.
"You came to warn me, Olaf, and I knew you not!" he cried. "I know you now—too late!"
He paced the turf with hurried steps. The sacred duty of revenge called him with a vehemence we cannot now realize. He had sworn to let slip no chance of taking vengeance on the burners of his brother. Often he had sought news of them, and often renewed his resolution; and now that he had found his foe, was he to idly suffer him to escape?
Yet he had been this man's guest; he had eaten of his bread, and slept in his dwelling. And his hands were tied by a stronger chain. "Osla, Osla," he cried, "for your sake I am faithless to my vows, and forgetful of my duty to my kindred!"
Then the memory of Thord the Tall, telling of the burning, rose fresh and strong, and again his hand sought his side, and his breath came fast, till the vision of Osla swept aside all other thoughts.
The time went by until the hour was hard on midnight. Gradually his mind grew more composed.
"I am in the hands of destiny," he said to himself. "Let fate do with me what it will."
All the northern sky was still red with the afterglow of sunset, creeping slowly eastwards against the dawn; land and sea lay clear and yet dim, for the light was ghostly as a phosphorescent chamber; the tide was slack, and lapped softly on the rocks; and everything in the world seemed tranquil.
"The end has come," he said.
All at once, on the sheen of the sound, he spied a curious black mark, far out and vague. Gradually it seemed to steal nearer, till Estein, looking at it keenly, forgot his thoughts in a rising curiosity. Then it took shape, and faintly across the water came the splash of oars and the voices of men. As they drew nearer, he crouched below a bank and watched their approach with growing wonder and something too of awe.
"The gods have sent for me," he thought.
They were being carried by the current towards the place where he stood, and presently they made a landing on the rocks. There followed a consultation in low tones, and then one man left the boat and came up the bank. He stood out clearly in the transparent dusk—a tall, mail-clad figure, walking with a confident carriage.
Estein waited till he was opposite him, and then sprang up, dagger in hand.
"Who art thou?" he demanded.
The man's hand went straight to his sword, but at the sound ofEstein's voice it fell again.
"Estein, my foster-brother!" he cried.
"Helgi!"
Helgi opened his arms and embraced him tenderly, speaking with an emotion he made no effort to control. "Estein, my brother, I thought thou wert in truth in Valhalla. I have wept for thee, Estein; I have mourned thee as dead. Tell me that this is thy very self, and not some island ghost come to mock me."
The friendly voice and grasp, coming in this his hour of trouble, touched Estein to the heart.
"It is I, indeed, Helgi," he said; "and never have I felt more glad to see a face and clasp a hand. How came you here? I thought I had parted from my friends for ever. I have been so long alone that they had begun to seem like dream-men."
Helgi told him briefly how he had swum ashore to another island, and there been picked up by Ketill, the black-bearded captain of one of Estein's scattered ships; how, giving up all hope, they had sailed for the south, and after meeting head winds and little luck, returned to the Orkneys, where, from a man who had been with Margad, news of the stranger on the Holy Isle had reached their ears.
"They say, Estein, that your hermit has a fair daughter. Methinks she would like to see your foster-brother; would she not?"
"Nay, Helgi, ask me no more questions, but take me quickly away. I am spell-bound here, and I dare not trust myself to stay one moment longer."
"I know these spells, Estein; they have been cast on men by other maids before now. Better take your sorceress with you. It is unlucky to break such spells so rudely."
"Laugh not, Helgi," said Estein, taking his arm and hurrying him down to the shore. "This spell has meant more to me than you can guess."
"By the hammer of Thor!" exclaimed Helgi, stopping suddenly, "there surely is the witch herself."
Estein looked round, and standing against the sky he saw the slender form he knew so well.
"Wait for me, Helgi," he said, "the spell is on me still," and starting away suddenly he ran up the bank again.
"Osla!" he cried, and stopped abruptly.
"What means this, Vandrad?" she asked.
Her eyes were wide open with troubled surprise, and looking into her upturned face he thought she never was so fair before.
"They have come for me, Osla, and I must go. Farewell! remember me not."
"Do you leave us in this way—without saying farewell, or telling us you were going?"
"I knew not myself when they would come. I told you I must leave you and seek the sea again. It has come true sooner than I expected."
He took her hands.
"Farewell!" he said again.
She turned her face away.
"I feared you would tire of us," she said, her voice sinking very low.
"Never, Osla, never! but fate has been too strong for me. They wait for me now, and I must leave you."
"Farewell, Vandrad!" she said, looking up, and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
"Osla!" he cried, drawing her towards him. She yielded an instant, and then suddenly broke free and started away.
"Farewell!" she said again, and her voice sounded like a sob.
He did not trust himself to answer, but turned and hurried to the boat.
They pushed off in silence, the oars dipped in the quiet sound, and Estein left the Holy Isle.
All through the small hours of the morning Estein sat on the poop in silence. Helgi, wrapped in his cloak, threw himself on the deck beside him and fell asleep with a lightened heart, while the long ship, slipping down the sound with the tide, turned westwards into the swell of the Atlantic.
Gloom had settled over Estein's mind. The pleasantest memories were distorted by the ghost of that old blood feud; his murdered brother called aloud for vengeance; in the wash of the waves and the creaking of the timbers he heard the hermit recite again the story of the burning, and through it all a voice cried, "Farewell! farewell!"
The sun at that season rises early. With it the breeze freshened, and one by one the sleeping figures in the waist woke, and began to stir about the ship. Still their leader sat silent.
Helgi at length sat up with a start, and rubbed his eyes. He looked at Estein, and smiled.
"Very much in love methinks," he said to himself.
At last Estein saw he was observed, and passing his hand across his brow as if to sweep away his thoughts, asked wearily,—
"Where do we go now, Helgi?"
"Your spell needs a violent remedy, and I have that on my mind that may cure it. What say you to letting Liot Skulison know that he did not slay us all? There are here two others besides ourselves who escaped the fate of Thorkel and our comrades, and they think they owe Liot something. Does revenge seem sweet?"
"Then Liot is alive?"
"Ay, Thor has spared him for us. The Orkney-man who led us to you has an ancient feud against the bairn-slayers, and he tells me Liot and his men are feasting at his dwelling. Shall we fall upon them to-night?"
"You are a good physician, Helgi. Battle and storm are the best cures for such as I."
"I cannot give you a storm, I fear," laughed Helgi, "but you can have fighting enough to-night. Liot keeps two hundred men and more about him, and we have here some seventy all told."
"We have faced greater odds together, Helgi. Life does not seem so fair to me now that I should shrink from odds of three to one. Let us seek Liot wherever he is, and when we have found him, tell him to arm as many men as he can muster. Then let our destiny weave its web for us."
Helgi laughed again.
"That would be a good revenge—to let Liot slay the men of Estein, a shipload at a time. If Odin wishes us to die, I shall try to meet my fate stoutly, but I shall not help him in the slaying. Nay, Estein, I can devise a better plan than yours."
Estein smiled for the first time since he had come on board.
"So long as it gives me a good fight with stout foes, and with you at my side, I care not what plan you propose."
"There speaks yourself again!" cried Helgi; "and I think that ere long you will meddle with my schemes. I will call Ketill and the Orkneyman, and we four will hold council here."
Ketill, the broad-beamed captain of the ship—the same whose path had been stopped by Atli—a man of few words and stout deeds, and Grim, the Orkneyman, came up to the poop. There they deliberated for long. Helgi was all for fire.
"Let us hear how the men of Liot will sing when they are warm."
Ketill gave a short laugh.
"I, too, am for burning," he said.
"We must catch them when they are drinking," said Grim. "When Liot's feasts are over many men go to sleep in outhouses round the hall, and we have not force enough here to surround them all at once."
"I will have no more burnings," said Estein.
"When had we our last?" asked Helgi. "You speak as though we had done naught but burn foes all our lives. We have never had a burning before, Estein, and it is better to begin as the burners than the burned."
"I have lately heard tell of another. It is no work for brave men."
Helgi shrugged his shoulders.
"Let us drown them then," he said.
Ketill gave another short, gruff laugh.
"Nay, Ketill, I am not jesting; in truth I am in little humour for that. If seventy brave men cannot clear a hall of two hundred drinkers, what virtue lies in stout hearts and sharp swords? We will enter the hall, you from one end and I from the other, and I think the men of Liot Skulison will not have to complain of too peaceful an evening."
"We must catch them, then, while they are feasting. Afterwards it will be too late, with only seventy men," the wary Grim replied.
"We can choose our hour," said Estein; "and whatever plan we fall on, it seems we must be in time."
Helgi laughed lightly.
"I thought you would leave us little say, Estein, when once you were aroused," he said. "'Tis all the same to me. Fire, sword, or water—choose what you will, you will always find me by your side; and if you must go to Valhalla, why, I will blithely bear you company."
"Fire were better," said Ketill, shaking his head.
The day was still young when the council of war came to an end, and as they had more than sufficient time to reach the hall of Liot before night, the bows were turned to the open sea, that they might better escape observation. Once they had got some miles from land they turned southwards, and striking the sail, to make as little mark as they could, moved slowly under oars alone. All day the long ship rolled in a great ground-swell, the western cliffs of Orkney now hidden by a wall of water, and now glinting in the sunshine as they rose from trough to crest, and right ahead the distant Scottish coast drawing gradually nearer. As the afternoon wore on they turned landwards again, and towards evening found themselves coasting a mountainous island lying to the south of Hrossey.
"What do men call this?" asked Helgi.
"They call it Haey, the high island, and it is on a bay to the south of it that Liot Skulison dwells," answered Grim, their pilot for the time.
They drew closer and closer to the land, until a towering line of cliffs rose for more than a thousand feet right above their heads. It was a stern and sombre coast, unbroken by any bays or inland glimpses, and gloomy and terrible in the fading light. The great oily swell broke into spouts of foam at the cliff-foot, and all along the face of the precipice they could see innumerable sea-fowl clinging to the rock.
Gradually, as they sailed along this hostile land, a light sea-fog began to gather. The leaders of the hazardous expedition watched it closing in upon them with growing apprehension.
"What say you, Grim?" said Helgi; "can you take us to Liot in this mist?"
Grim looked round him doubtfully.
"Methinks I can take you there," he said, "but I fear we shall be too late, we can move but slowly; and with only seventy men, I doubt we shall do little when the men of Liot have left the feast."
Estein had been standing in silence near the tiller. At these words he turned and cried fiercely,—
"Who talks of doing little? Liot or I shall fall to-night, though the blackness of death were round us. Think you I have come to sit here idly in a fog? Tell your men to row like valiant Vikings, Ketill, and not like timorous women."
The respect due to rank in Norway was little more than the proud Norseman chose to pay, and it was with small deference to his prince that Ketill answered,—
"You are fey, I think, Estein. I shall not lose my ship that you may the sooner feed the fishes."
"Are you, too, afraid? By the hammer of Thor! I think you are in league with Liot. I shall make these cravens row."
"That you will not," replied Ketill.
In an instant both swords were half-drawn. The men within earshot were too much surprised at this sudden change from Estein's usual manner to his followers to do more than look in astonishment at the dispute, and in another instant the blades would have clashed, when Helgi rushed between them.
"What is this?" he cried. "Are you possessed of evil spirits, that you would quarrel on the eve of battle? Remember, Ketill, that Estein is your prince; and Estein, my brother, what ails you? You are under a spell indeed. Would that I had slain the witch ere you parted. You can gain nothing by wrecking the ship, and this fog is too dense to row a race off such a coast as this."
Perhaps it was the allusion to the "witch" that brought Estein to his senses, for his eyes suddenly softened.
"I was wrong, Ketill," he said. "The wrath of the gods is upon me, and I am not myself."
He turned away abruptly, and gazed moodily into the fog; while Ketill, with the look of one who is dealing with a madman, left the poop.
"It is ill sailing with a bewitched leader," he muttered.
The idea that Estein was under a spell took rapid hold of the superstitious crew. They told each other that this was no earthly mist that had fallen on them, and listening to the break of the sea on the cliffs, they talked low of wizards and sea-monsters, and heard strange voices in the sound of the surge. Then they became afraid to row at more than a snail's pace, and sometimes almost stopped altogether. In vain Helgi went amongst them, and urged that Grim knew these waters so well that there was little danger, in vain he pointed to the hope of booty and revenge ahead; even as he spoke there was a momentary break in the mist, and they saw the towering cliff so close above them that his words were wasted.
"There is witchcraft here," they said; and Ketill was as obstinate as the rest. The ship crept under the cliffs with hardly any way on at all, and Helgi, in despair, saw the golden hour slipping by.
"Oh, for two more good ships," he thought: "then we could wait till daylight, and fall upon them when we pleased."
Estein had again fallen a prey to his thoughts. In his gloomy fatalism he thought that the wrath of the gods pursued him for the neglect of his duty to his murdered brother, and he submitted to the failure of this adventure as the beginning of his punishment. The fighting fire died out, the longing for action was choked, and in their place what was as nearly a spell as can fall on mortal men had fallen on him. His devoted friend fumed impatiently beside him as the fog grew denser and the hours went slowly by, and bitterly he cursed the enchantress of the Holy Isle.
"He talks of the gods," he said to himself. "This is no work of theirs; it is the magic of that island witch, may the trolls take her!"
"The fog lifts!" cried Grim from his post at the tiller.
The men heard the cry, and ceasing their awestruck talk, looked eagerly at the fast-widening rifts in the white shroud. Ghost-like wreaths detached themselves, flitted by the ship, and then dissipated in thin air. The summer night sky with its pale stars appeared in lakes above, and below, the fog rose from the water like steam. Presently the great cliffs came out clear and terrible in the midnight dusk, and the men cried that the spell was broken.
Over Estein came the greatest change. As the fog lifted, the light returned to his eye, and he turned eagerly to Grim.
"Where are we now? Have we yet time to catch Liot at his feast?"
The pilot shook his head.
"It will take us full two hours to reach the bay where Liot dwells, and the feast, I fear, will have ended even now, for the hour is late."
Helgi's face fell, and he muttered a deep imprecation as he turned to Estein.
"What think you?" he asked; "shall we run for some distant bay, and return to-morrow night?"
"I have come to meet Liot to-night," Estein replied, and turning away he paced the deck in deep thought.
Helgi's cheerfulness returned in an instant. He hummed an air, and leaning against the bulwark awaited the march of events with his usual careless philosophy.
"The men were right," he thought; "it was a magic mist. The spell has lifted with the fog. It wants but a brisk fight now to cure him."
A grim smile stole over Estein's face, and presently he stopped beside Grim, and said,—
"Know you where Liot sleeps in this hall of his?"
"Ay; I was forced to follow him for two years, and I know well his sleeping chamber."
"Can you lead us to it in the dark?"
Grim looked at him doubtfully before answering.
"I think so," he said at length.
"But are you sure?"
The pilot looked round him.
"The night is light," said he, "and there will still be some fire in the hall. But it will be a dangerous venture."
Estein turned impatiently.
"Methinks you have little feud with Liot," he said, and went over to where Helgi stood.
"Well?" asked Helgi.
"I have a plan."
"Have you resolved on a burning? This cursed fog has made me cold, and a fire would like me well."
"You have heard my rede on burnings, Helgi. My scheme is to carry off Liot in his sleep. They will keep no watch. The very dogs will be drunk, and I think it will not be so difficult as it seems. Will you come with me into Liot's hall?"
Helgi's blue eyes opened wide, and he laughed as he said,—
"There has never been your match for enterprise in the north, Estein. Your plans seem all so chosen that your foes may have the greatest chance to slay you. Are we to leave you in Liot's place?"
"I asked if you would follow me."
"You know the answer to that already. But why trouble with Liot's carcass? Surely it were easier to slay him where he lies."
"I like not a midnight murder, and Liot and I have not yet decided who is the better man. That is a trial which I would fain make, and then we can see what the gods would do with me."
"To fight an enemy and capture him afterwards is common enough, but to capture him first and then fight him seems the act of a madman," answered Helgi.
"Then I am a madman," replied Estein, and with that he turned away and walked forward to consult Ketill.
He was impelled by his creed of morbid fatalism to seek this test, whereby his fate might be sharply decided. He longed, too, for action, and the idea, once held, fascinated him. But to all others on board he seemed merely the victim of some insidious magic. That he was under a spell Helgi had no manner of doubt.
"A fair fight," he thought, "is always manlier than a secret slaying, but not Odin himself would fly away with the foe who had slain two shiploads of his followers, and afterwards challenge him to single combat. It is as if he should catch a thief who had stolen half his goods, and then throw dice with him for the rest. But all spells act most banefully at night, they say; doubtless in the morning Estein will rest content with giving him a fitting burial—if he catches him."
And at the thought he laughed aloud.
"May I die in bed like a woman," he said to himself, "if this be not the strangest way of fishing for a Viking!"
Ketill was at first for stoutly refusing the adventure; but Helgi, whose convictions sat lightly on him compared with his attachment to Estein, persuaded him to consent.
"Are you afraid?" he asked, and that question left no room for the proud Viking to hesitate.
It was about two hours after midnight when the long ship, stealing under the shadow of the cliffs, turned into a small bay. It lay open to the south, guarded on either side by a precipitous headland, and withdrawn from the tideway and the swell of the western ocean. In the weird grey light of that June night the men could see a valley opening out of great inland hills on to a more level strip of moorland at the head of the bay. On a spit of sandy beach lay three warships, and on the slope of the hill to the left stood a small township of low buildings, clustering round the higher drinking-hall of Liot Skulison.
In dead silence they hugged the shore as closely as their pilot dared.
"We are as close inshore as we can win," he said at length in a low voice.
The boat was stealthily launched, and into it as many men as it would hold were crowded.
"Keep the rowers on their benches, we may have little time to get away," said Ketill in a gruff whisper to his forecastle man, whom he left in command of the ship.
"We have little wish to be caught."
"Push off, men, and remember he who speaks above a whisper I shall think is tired of life."
The oars dipped and the boat crept slowly landwards.
"You know the landing, Grim?"
Grim, who sat at the tiller, merely nodded; and presently the bows grated on a strip of gravel beach.
"The trolls take you!" muttered Ketill. "Could you not have told us to slacken speed? The dead could hear a landing like this."
"'Tis all right yet, Ketill," whispered Estein. "We are too far from the hall."
"By the hammer of Thor!" growled the black-bearded captain, whose temper was ever of the shortest, "these men splash like cattle."
One by one they stepped ashore, and then the party was divided.One man was left in charge of the boat; Ketill with three otherswent round to where the long ships lay; while Estein, Helgi, andGrim, with six picked men, cautiously approached the hall.
They crossed a strip of rising heather and struck a sharp slope of turf. Close above them loomed a dark mass of building, and the silence was unbroken save by the stealthy fall of their footsteps. Grim led the way, then came Estein, then Helgi, and the others followed in single file.
Warily they came up to the end of the hall, and under the door there was a brief pause. Estein gave his final instructions in a whisper, and then quickly pushing open the door, he stepped in. Helgi, Grim, and one man followed, while the other five waited outside with their weapons in their hands.
These old Norse drinking-halls were long and high rooms, with great fires down the middle, and beside them long lines of benches for the guests. All down the sides the sleeping chambers opened, and over these hung the arms of the warriors.
The hall of Liot was very dark and still. A ghostly flicker of light struggled through the narrow windows, and on the fires the embers slowly died. Beside the benches slumbered the forms of some of the heaviest drinkers, and once or twice they nearly stumbled over these. Grim came up beside Estein and led him about half-way down the hall. There he stopped and pointed to a door. There were no words; the others closed up and loosened their daggers in their sheaths. Estein stepped back softly to the fire and lifted up a log, one end of which still glowed brightly, and then he pushed open the door. The chamber was dark as a wolf's mouth as he groped for the bed. So cautiously he stepped that the heavy breathing of the sleeper only broke the silence, and very carefully he went forward and thrust the log so close to the unconscious slumberer that he could clearly read his features. Then he placed it against the wall, and gave one whispered order. In an instant a mantle was twisted round Liot's mouth, his hands and feet were bound, and ere he was thoroughly awake, he was mounted on the shoulders of his foes, forming one of a singular procession that hurried through the hall of Liot Skulison.
Grim, who walked first, had almost reached the door, when from the blackest of the shadows a man stepped suddenly across his path. For an instant the pilot's heart stood still. Then he saw that he had only to deal with a half-awakened drinker, and as his mouth was framing a question, Grim's dagger flashed, and with a cry the man fell heavily on the floor. Instantly there arose such a chorus of barking as might have wakened the dead.
"The dogs are sobering," said Helgi.
"Hasten!" cried Estein. "The men will be on us."
They hurried through the door, and bearing their captive on their shoulders, the whole party broke into a run.
"The dogs are after us!" cried one.
"Turn and kill them," said Estein.
Three men stopped, and with a few sweeping sword slashes scattered the yelping crowd; but even as they were driving them off, they could see that men were coming out of the hall and outhouses.
"Where is Ketill?" cried Estein, as they reached the boat.
The man in charge had seen nothing of him.
"May werewolves seize him!" exclaimed Helgi. "He has had time enough to tear the long ships plank from plank."
"We have no time to wait for him; it is his fault if he be left," said Grim.
"That knowledge would doubtless comfort him," replied Estein; "but nevertheless I shall wait."
"Here they come!" cried Helgi.
"And here come those who will reach us before them," said another man.
He was right. A swarm of men were already running down the slope, and it was clear that they must reach the boat first.
Estein sprang on board.
"Push off!" he cried; "we will row along the shore to meet them."
"Well thought of," said Helgi; "'tis lucky we have one cool head with us."
The pursuers at first either failed to see Ketill's party, or mistook them for their own men, for they continued their headlong rush straight to the water, firing arrows and darts as they ran. Then they saw the manoeuvre, and turned with loud cries along the shore. The boat had got a start by this time; the rowers bent their backs and made her spring like a live thing, and the still water rose in oily waves from the bow. But fast as they pulled, the men on shore ran faster.
"By all the gods, we are too late!" cried Helgi.
"They take to the water!" said Estein. "Pull, men, pull! Oh, 'tis a night worth living for!"
The four swimmers stoutly struck out for dear life, to a splashing accompaniment of darts and stones.
"By the hammer of Thor! they will be struck as we take them on board," exclaimed Helgi. "Friend Ketill makes a generous mark."
"Round them!" said Estein. "Get between them and the shore."
Grim pressed the tiller hard down, and circling round the swimmers they were presently hauling them in on the sheltered side. Then the crowd on shore set off for their ships. Ketill, dripping with water, and bleeding from an arrow wound on the shoulder, watched them with a grim smile.
"They will find their ships ready for sea," he said.
As he spoke a tongue of flame shot up from one of the long ships, and Estein turned to him in surprise.
"Then you set them on fire?"
"Ay," replied Ketill; "we slew some guards—who thereby learned not to sleep at their posts—and made such holes in the ships as will take them two days to patch. Then I bethought me it were well to have a burning, if it were only of a long ship; so we kindled three great fires, one for each vessel, and if the men of Liot feel cold to-night, it will not be my fault. But have you got Liot?"
"Here he is," said Estein, pointing to the pinioned captive.
Ketill laughed loud and long.
"Estein," he cried, "I ask your pardon. You may be under a spell, but you have given us a merry night's work. We have earned a long drink."
A shout of congratulation rose from the ship as the boat drew near and the anxious watchers counted the fourteen men returned again with their prisoner. Drink was served round in huge beakers, and the superstitious fears vanished like the fog as they rowed in triumph out of the bay.
They could see behind them the flames and smoke rising ever higher from the burning vessels, and as the ale mounted to their heads they shouted derisive defiance across the water.
"Where shall we go now?" asked Grim.
"Do you know of any uninhabited holm where we could land by daybreak?" said Estein.
"There are many such about the Orkneys; one I know well, which methinks we should reach soon after sunrise. There I shall take you."
Ketill came up at that moment with a great horn of ale, and cried, with a joviality only shown when drink flowed freely,—
"Drink, Estein, drink!—drink to the soul of Liot Skulison, which shall shortly speed to Valhalla. Shall we slay him now, or keep that sport till we have better light to see him die?"
"I have other work on hand than drinking. Liot and I have an account to settle at daybreak."
Ketill stared at him in astonishment.
"You mean then in very truth to fight?" he cried. "Well, do as you wish; but it is a strange spell."
He left the poop with his horn, and Estein seated himself on a stool, and leaning back against the bulwarks, tried to rest.
His face was set, his mind made up, and he only waited impatiently for the hour of his trial. Sleep came to him in uneasy snatches, during which he seemed to pass years of wild adventure, haunted all the time by strangely distorted Oslas. He woke at last to the chill of a grey morning and the roll of a Viking ship. With a little shiver he started to his feet, and began to pace the deck.
Presently Helgi joined him, and laid his hand on his arm.
"Estein," he said, "tempt not your fate too far. Never before have I seen witchcraft such as this. Why should you fear the wrath of the gods? I tell you, my brother, you are under a spell; let us seek some magician who will cure you, and not rashly look for death when you are wearied with sleepless nights and black magic. If the wrath of the gods is really on you, it will fall were you to flee from men and seek refuge in the loneliest cave on all these coasts. I will slay Liot Skulison for you; in fair fight if you will, though I think not he deserves such a chance. Was it a fair fight when he fell on our two ships with his ten?"
"I would slay him, Helgi, like a dog, were it not that something within me bids me ask in this wise the wishes of Odin."
"'Tis the voice of yon witch."
"She is no witch, Helgi, only the fairest girl in all the North. Listen, and I will tell you the story of this spell; but remember it is to you alone I tell it, and never must another know of my shame."
"Have you ever known me betray your trust?"
"Never, Helgi, my brother, or you would not hear this tale. To me it seems the story of six years of my life, though it was scarcely as many weeks; but I shall make it as brief as I may."
"The hour is yet early."
"After the battle, Helgi, I should have been drowned but for that maid you saw. She saved my life, and that at least I owe her. She brought me to the abode of her father, the hermit of the Holy Isle; and there I learned to love her. For six weeks I was no Viking. I forgot my kinsfolk and my country, forgot all but Osla."
"Call you not that a spell?"
"Did you not say yourself that you had known many spells like that, cast on men by maids? It was the magic of love that entangled me."
"Men said the hermit was a wizard."
"No wizard, Helgi, or he had never let me come there. He was a moody and fitful old man. I pleased him with my songs, talked to him of the strange religion he professes—for he is what men call a Christian—and grew in time to think of him as a friend. (Verily, I think there must have been magic!) All this while I spoke no word of love to Osla, though I think she was not indifferent to me."
"It was easy to see that."
"Twice on that island a voice I could not name warned me from beyond the grave, but I heeded it not. (Can the man have been a wizard?) One night—it was the night you landed, Helgi—I sat alone with the hermit. Something had moved him to talk. I remember now! it was a song I sung myself. He told me a tale of a burning.
"Helgi, he had hardly begun ere I knew the end, and could name my warning voice. The tale was the burning of Laxafiord, and the voice was my brother Olaf's."
"And the hermit?"
"Is Thord the Tall, the last of the burners."
"Is! Then you slew him not?"
"My dagger was drawn, I was bending towards him, when I heard without the steps of Osla. I fled—ask me not what I thought or what I did. Thord the Tall and I both live, and I would know whether the gods would have it so. Wherefore I meet Liot this morning."
"Then you have spared Olaf's burner for the sake of the burner's daughter?"
"I had eaten his bread and shared his dwelling for six weeks, and but for that daughter I had never lived to meet him."
"He slew your brother, Estein."
"There is no need to remind me of that."
"Methinks there is; he still lives."
"And I still love his daughter."
Estein turned away as he spoke, and gazed with folded arms over the grey waters.
Helgi looked at him in silence; then he went up to his side.
"Forgive me, Estein," he said, "and let Odin judge you. I love you too well to be aught but a friend whatever you may do."
"Helgi! but for you I think I should fall upon my sword."
His friend tried to force a laugh, but it came hard.
"Nay, rather seek a sword for Liot Skulison, for I see we are nearing the holm."
"I had forgotten Liot," said Estein. "We will loose his bonds, and let him choose his weapons."
He found Liot sitting in the waist bound hand and foot. His eye was as firm as if he had been in his own hall, and he looked up indifferently as Estein approached.
"Do you remember me, Liot?" asked his captor.
"Ay, Estein. You, methinks, are one of the bairns I thought I had slain. Well was it for you that the Orkney tides run strong. But the luck has changed, I see; and you were a bold man, Estein Hakonson, to change it as you did. Why did you not burn us out?"
"Because I wanted you alone."
"Ay, torture is a pleasant game for the torturers. How do you intend that I shall die?"
"By my sword, if the gods will it. In an hour, Liot, we fight to the death. Our battle-ground is yonder holm, the weapons you may choose yourself; and meanwhile I shall loose your bonds, and if you wish to eat or drink you may."
A look of blank astonishment came over the Viking captain's face.
"This is a merry jest, Estein," he said.
"It is no jest.—Loose his bonds, men."
Liot gave a shout of joy.
"Estein," he cried, "you are a brave man, but I think you are fey."
"That will soon be seen."
The Viking's cool indifference gave place to the most exuberant excitement. Like everybody else he thought that Estein was either mad or the victim of some enchantment; but so long as he was going to strike a good blow for life, he cared not how the chance had come. He called for ale and meat, and with the eye of an old soldier carefully picked his weapons; while the men around him muttered to each other that Estein was surely fey.
All this time they had been sailing eastwards before a light breeze. The sun had long been up, but the whole sky was obscured by light clouds, and there was an early morning feel in the air. Nearly the whole length of the wide and lonely firth that divides Orkney from the Scottish coast lay behind them, and close ahead they saw the little island that Grim had chosen for the meeting-place. When they had reached the holm they anchored the ship close inshore, and two boat-loads of men were first sent to prepare the field of battle. Then when all was ready the two combatants, attended by Helgi and Ketill, were rowed ashore.
Liot was gay and cheerful as a man going to a feast; while Estein sat silent in the stern, his thoughts busy with a landing at another island.
"You need ale, Estein," said his opponent; "a man going to fight should be gay."
"It is more fitting," replied Helgi, "for the man who comes back to be cheerful."
"Well said," said Ketill.
Liot only laughed, and springing ashore before the boat had touched the rocks, cried,—
"I had little thought to have such a pleasant morning. We will finish what we began before, Estein."
"Ay, we will finish," said Estein.
They found a wide ring marked off with stones, and in this the two champions took their stand. Each was armed with a helmet and a coat of ring-mail, and bore in his right hand a sword, and in his left a long, heart-shaped shield. Round their waists another sword was girded, though there was likely to be little time to draw this. In height and build they were very equally matched, but men noticed that Estein moved more lightly on his feet.
In a loud voice Ketill proclaimed that whoever should withdraw outside the ring of stones should ever after bear the name of dastard.
Then all went outside the circle, and with a shout Liot sprang at his foe. Estein caught the sword on his shield, and in return delivered such a storm of blows that Liot got no chance for a blow in return. He began to give ground, Estein pressing him hotly, his blade flashing so fast that men could not follow it. It was easily seen that in quickness and dexterity with his weapon Liot was inferior to his foe; but with wary eye and cool head he kept well covered with his shield, shifting his ground all the time. Twice he was nearly driven over the line, but each time saved himself by a rapid side movement.
"I fear that Estein will tire," muttered Helgi.
"Ay; he has started too hard," replied Ketill.
It seemed as if they were right. Estein's blows became less frequent, and Liot in turn attacked hotly. He made as little impression, however, as Estein, and then by mutual consent both men stopped for a minute's breathing-space.
"You seem tired, Estein," said Liot.
"Guard yourself," was the reply, and the fight began again. As before, Estein attacked hotly, Liot steadily giving ground.
"Too hard, too hard! after two sleepless nights he cannot fight long like this," exclaimed Helgi.
So thought Liot, and he bided his time with patience. He was opposed, however, by one of the best and most determined swordsmen in Norway, and Estein as well as any one knew the risk he ran. He rained in his blows like a hailstorm; but fast though they came, he was sparing his strength, and there was less vigour in his attack than there seemed. He bent all his energies on driving Liot back on the ring, shifting his ground as fast as his foe, heading off his attempts to move round, and all the while watching keenly for an opening.
"He wins, Ketill! he wins!" cried Helgi.
"Ay," said the black-bearded captain; "there is little skill we can teach Estein."
As they neared the stones, Estein's onset became more furious than ever; sword and shield had to shift up and down, right and left, to guard his storm of blows, and all the while Liot was being driven back the faster towards one place where larger stones than usual had been used to make the ring. In vain he sprang suddenly to one side; Estein was before him, and his blade nearly found its way home. Two paces more Liot gave way, and then his heel struck a boulder. For an instant he lost his balance, and that moment was his last on earth. As the shield shifted, Estein's sword came full on his neck, and it was only the bairn-slayer's body that fell without the ring.
"Bring the spades!" cried Ketill—"a fitting enough epitaph forLiot Skulison."
His conqueror was already in Helgi's arms.
"I thought I should have had to avenge you, Estein. My heart is light again."
"Odin has answered me, Helgi."
"And the spell is broken?"
"No; that spell, I fear, will break only with my death-wound."
Helgi laughed out of pure light-heartedness.
"There are fair maids in the south lands," he said.
"I go to Norway," replied Estein. "I would fain see the pine woods again."
That evening they saw the Orkneys faint and far away astern, andEstein, as he watched them fade into the dusk, would have givenall Norway to hear again the roost run clamorous off the HolyIsle.
On the rocky shore of the Holy Isle, Osla sat alone. The spell of summer weather had passed from the islands, and in its wake the wind blew keenly from the north, and the grey cloud-drift hurried low overhead. All colour had died out of land and sea; the hills looked naked and the waters cold.
And Vandrad, the sea-rover, had gone with the sunshine—had gone, never so Osla said to herself, to return again.
She rose and tried to give her thoughts a lighter turn, but the note of the north wind smote drearily upon her ears, and she left the sea-shore with a sigh. For seven uneventful years she had found in the sea a friend of whom she never tired, and on the little island duties enough to make the days pass swiftly by. Why should the time now hang heavy on her hands?
She walked slowly to the wind-swept cells. Her father sat within, the blackness of night upon his soul, the Viking fire now burned completely out.
She tried to rouse him, but he answered only in absent monosyllables. Again she sought the solace of the sea, but never, it seemed to her, had it looked so cold and so unfriendly.
"Why did he ever come at all?" she said.
And so the days went by; summer changed to autumn, and autumn gave place to winter. For week after week one gale followed another. For days on end the spin-drift flew in clouds across the island, salt and unceasing.
The sea was never silent, the gulls flew inland and the cormorants sat storm-bound in their caves; brief glimpses of cold and sunny weather passed as abruptly as they came, and in the smoke of a driftwood fire Osla plied her needle and followed the wanderings of her thoughts.
During all these months the hermit spoke little. So engrossed was Osla in herself that she hardly noticed how seldom the cloud seemed to lift from his mind. Never as before did he talk with her at length, or instruct her from the curious scraps of knowledge his once acute mind had picked up from sources Christian and pagan, from the wise men of the North and the monasteries of southern lands. He never once alluded to their guest, never even apparently observed his departure, and in her heart his daughter thanked him for his silence.
The lingering winter passed at length, and one morning, in the first freshness of spring, Osla stood without the cell. Presently her father joined her, and she noticed, though her thoughts were busy elsewhere, that he wore a strange expression. He looked at her doubtfully, and then said,—
"Where is Vandrad? I would hear him sing."
Then Osla started, and her heart smote her.
"Vandrad, father?" she said gently. "He has been gone these eight months. Did you not know?"
The hermit seemed hardly to comprehend her words.
"Gone!" he repeated. "Why did you not tell me?"
"Surely you knew," she said.
"Why went he away? I would hear him sing. He used to sing to me of war. He sang last night. Last night," he repeated doubtfully; "methinks it was last night. Bring him to me."
She turned his questions as best she could, and strove to make him think of other things. With her arm through his they paced the turf along the shore, and all the while her heart sank lower and lower. She was in the presence of something so mysterious that even wise men in those days shrank from it in fear. It was the finger of God alone, they said, that laid a blight on human minds, and there before her was His handiwork.
Yet, had she but known it, this blight had been the slow work of years. Her father's mind, always dark and superstitious, and tinged with morbid melancholy, had gradually in these long solitary years given way more and more before sombre underminings, till now, with old age at the gates, it had at last succumbed. Some few bright moments there were at rare intervals, but in all the months that followed it was but the shattered hull of Thord the Tall, once the terror of the western seas, that lingered on the Holy Isle.
The care of him had at least the effect of turning Osla's thoughts away from herself. Than sunshine and another's troubles there are no better tonics.
Yet it was a dreary summer for the hermit's daughter, and it grew all the drearier and more lonesome when the long, fresh days began to shorten, and the sea was more seldom still and the wind more often high. All the time, the old man grew slowly worse. He sat continually in his cell; and though Osla would not acknowledge her fears even to herself, she knew that death could not be far away. Yet he lingered through the winter storms, and the end came upon a February evening. All the afternoon the hermit had lain with shut eyes, never speaking a word or giving a sign. It fell wet and gusty at night, and Osla, bending over the couch, could hear nothing but the wind and the roost she knew so well.
At length he raised his head and asked,—
"Are we alone, Osla?"
"There is no one here but me, father."
"Listen then," he said. "I have that on my mind that you must hear before I die. My end is close at hand. I seem to have been long asleep, and now I know that this wakefulness you see is but the clearness of a man before he dies."
He took her hand as he spoke, and she tried to stifle a sob.
"Not so," she said, while the tears rose so fast that she could only dimly see his face; "you are better, far better, to-night."
"I am death-doomed, Osla. Thord the Tall shall die in his bed to-night, an old and worthless wreck. Once I had little thought of such a death; and even now, though I die a Christian man, and my hope is in Christ Jesus, and St. Andaman the holy, I would like well to hear the clash of swords around me. But the doom of a man is fated from his birth."
His daughter was silent, and the old Viking, seeming to gather strength as he talked, went on in a strong, clear voice.
"I have heavy sins at my door. I have burned, I have slain in battle, I have pillaged towns and devastated corn-lands. May the Lord have mercy on my soul!
"He shall have mercy, Osla! I am saved, and the heathen I slew are lost for ever. For the souls of the Christians who fell by this hand I have done penance and given great gifts, and to-night these things shall be remembered. To-night we part, Osla."
She held his great hand in both of hers, and pressed it against her lips, and in a broken voice she said,—
"No, not to-night, not to-night."
"Ay, to-night," he said. "But before we part you must hear of one deed that haunts me even now, though they were but heathens whom I slew."
"The burning at Laxafiord?" she whispered.
"Who has not heard of that burning?" he cried. "The flames leapt higher than the pine trees, the women shrieked—I hear them now!" He paused, and she pressed his hand the tighter.
"Father!" she said softly, "father!" But he paid no heed to her, for his mind had begun to wander, and he talked wildly to himself.
"Death-doomed I am. Have mercy upon my soul! ……Ay, the wind blows, a stormy day for fishing, and the flames are leaping—I see them leap! St. Ringan save me!……A Christian man, I tell thee…… spare not, spare not! Smite them to the last man!"
Then he fell silent, and she laid her free hand upon his brow, while outside the wind eddied and sang mournfully round the cell. At last his mind cleared again, and he spoke coherently though very feebly.
"I am dying, Osla; fare thee well! The box—you know the box?"
"The steel-bound box?" she answered.
"Ay, steel-bound, 'tis steel-bound indeed. I took it—"
He had begun to wander again, but with a last effort he collected his thoughts and went on,—
"Open it. There is a writing. Read, it will tell—promise—I can speak no more."
"I promise," she replied, hardly knowing what she said, her heart was so full.
There was another brief silence, and then loudly and clearly he cried,—
"Bring up my banner! Forward, Thord's men! Forward!……They fly!……They fly!"
The voice died away, and Osla was left alone.